Alan Joyce is pleading for a coherent national framework for border closures. But the meeting of national cabinet won’t bring him much relief.

An ever feisty Joyce still maintains his current cash burn of $40 million a week is the lowest of any major airline in the world and expresses confidence in pent-up demand for domestic travel at least when those state borders open again.
Little wonder Joyce wants an urgent fix for Australias domestic flying market.
It wasnt supposed to be like this. Qantas had anticipated it would be flying at 40 per cent of pre-COVID-19 levels domestically this month, steadily rising over the rest of the year. After all, intrastate routes like Brisbane-Cairns, Sydney-Ballina and Perth-Broome are already back above pre-COVID-19 levels.
Nationally, however, Qantas flights are stuck at around 20 per cent of previous levels. Even that is only due to government subsidies to sustain a minimum level of flights. The airlines underlying profit for last financial year fell 91 per cent to $124 million mainly because of a strong first half followed by savage cost cuts, government payments and still booming freight and loyalty businesses among the COVID clouds.
But thanks to nervous reaction to Victorias unexpected second wave, the airlines prospects this financial year look even more uncertain. Thats without taking into account the $8 billion reduction in typical annual revenue from its international arm.
Qantas doesnt expect international flights to start before mid-next year. That may yet prove optimistic. Australia is uniquely strict in not even allowing its citizens to leave the country for other than exceptional reasons.
Little wonder Joyce wants an urgent fix for Australias domestic flying market.
He wrote to premiers this week to push his argument that keeping borders closed, particularly between states with no cases of the virus, makes no medical sense and is doing enormous damage to Australian businesses and the economy.
Not that he quibbles with the need for Victoria to have shut down given the extent of its COVID-19 outbreak. But he cites NSW as the role model for managing a strategy of suppression of controlled cases.
So he is asking for a clear national framework based on scientific evidence rather than politics. And he insists the need for this extends well beyond the struggling travel and tourism industries.
We need to get people back in jobs, he said. Otherwise we are going to have a cliff that is going to be bigger than the financial impact COVID-19 has already caused.
Smaller states still want elimination
“But at the moment its not clear what those rules are going to be and how they will be applied. Thats a problem for all business and eventually its going to be a big problem for the economy.
Such logic is not going to get much traction beyond Canberra.
The smaller states still want elimination, not suppression of community transmission, ring-fenced by hard borders. Even NSW and Victoria are vague about any timetable for Qantas’ ability to increase the current one flight a day between Sydney and Melbourne formerly one of the worlds busiest routes, with 45 daily flights.
Nor is the official September 13 end for stage four lockdowns in Victoria likely to produce enough improvement in the numbers to satisfy other states and perhaps also the Andrews government about sufficient progress.
Even as he announced strong growth for Bunnings and Officeworks from his headquarters in a happily virus-free Western Australia, Wesfarmers chief executive Rob Scott warned both the benefits and the costs of the very extreme approach will be clear in the coming months.
I think we should be very concerned about the economic ramifications of the current system, he said.
It makes sense to look at ways in which we might be able to relax restrictions in a COVID-safe way. Unfortunately, we are probably going to need to see more economic harm caused before we recognise the need to make further refinements.
That includes the need to learn to effectively manage cases of the virus in any state rather than revert to more lockdowns in an environment of so much economic risk and uncertainty about the future.
“If we continue to have lockdowns, there will be more job losses, there will be enormous pressure financially on households, many businesses will fail in which case, collectively, we are going to have to work out how we deal with that, he said.
Thats why its so important we find a way of operating in a COVID-safe way to reduce the need for continuing to provide what will be unsustainable levels of financial support.
Scott Morrison will agree with such sentiments from business but his meeting with state premiers today will only confirm political reality. Warning, warning. Economic collision ahead!