D-Day for Vic Premier + What Alan Joyce refuses to apologise for

**Chris Spyrou** (0:08)
Hey, it's Chris Spyrou with you, welcome to The Briefing. The former CEO of Qantas has written a book detailing his time at the helm of one of Australia's most iconic brands, and he's not shying away from the thing that arguably brought his mostly successful leadership to an early end.

**Alan Joyce** (0:23)
At that stage, Qantas had the highest customer satisfaction ratings. The branding was seen as the most iconic brand in the country. It was extremely profitable, record share prize, highest employee engagement. So what changed? Covid changed. It hit us for six.

**Chris Spyrou** (0:39)
Alan Joyce on the decisions he regrets and stands by is coming up in the second half of this episode. First up, let's get into the headlines with Sacha Barbour Gatt on Tuesday, the 28th of July.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (0:51)
Thanks, Chris, starting today in Victoria, where the state's Labor Party could be plunged into turmoil with a leadership spill. We reported yesterday in headlines that Premier Jacinta Allen was facing pressure from factional leaders to resign over fears she would fail to win the November election. Well, that did happen, with Allen then refusing to stand down and her deputy, Ben Carroll, declaring he will nominate for the leadership. And it comes just six weeks after he had this exchange with a reporter.

**Chris Spyrou** (1:21)
Are you going to try and get the Premier's job tomorrow?

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (1:24)
No.

**Chris Spyrou** (1:24)
Are you going to ask her to step aside?

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (1:26)
No.

**Chris Spyrou** (1:26)
Can you look her in the eye and say that?

**SPEAKER_4** (1:28)
I can look you in the eye and say that, Premier.

**Chris Spyrou** (1:30)
Yeah, now there are hopes of avoiding a spill, the process of which could take up to six weeks to determine the new leader, with urgent talks underway among caucus members. But it's looking like a meeting this morning will confirm a formal challenge that will see rank and file members as well as those in the caucus vote on who should be the Premier.
Voting must be open for 28 days with an interim leader to be elected while the process is finalised. It's not clear who between Alan and Carol has the majority of support. Now, Alan belongs to the left side of the Victorian Labor Party and Carol belongs more to the right side of the party. So time will tell what happens here.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (2:11)
Yeah. Alan did run what might have been her final cabinet meeting yesterday. So after all this happened, all this talk and the confirmation from Ben Carroll, she then had to get up and be like, all right, guys, let's talk about some of our policies because they were looking into some of her actually supporters were pushing her to call for a royal commission into allegations of corruption within the Big Build project, which has really hampered just into Alan's leadership. She has refused to call for a royal commission. She says there's already been a national one and that the state government's dealing with the issues. She said she's sorry that it's happening and that there have been allegations of this corruption, but she's refused to take a really hard line on it. And that's seen as being the biggest hit to her leadership. We also talked, of course, about financial woes, Covid for Victoria, health, social issues. She's seen as linked to Dan Andrews a lot. So some people have very strong feelings about the former Premier. And so they see her as kind of just an extension of him. So a lot of people within the party were saying she can't win it. And polling backs that. Labor is on track to lose this election or at the very least end up in a very messy, hung parliament situation. So yes, we will find out today that caucus meeting is due this morning. And we will find out if Ben Carroll and Jacinta Eleanor to go toe to toe in a leadership battle.

**Chris Spyrou** (3:35)
Deputy Greens leader Maureen Faruqi says her win against Pauline Hanson is a win for all Australians. And that's after the federal court upheld an earlier ruling that the One Nation leader racially discriminated against her.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:46)
Today's win is for every single person out there who has been told to go back to where you came from. This is about saying to Pauline Hanson that you will be held accountable for the racism, the vile racism that you spout.

**Chris Spyrou** (4:02)
So a little bit of context here. This goes back to the day the Queen died in 2022 Faruqi posted offering her condolences to those who knew the monarch, but said that she couldn't mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and the wealth of colonised peoples. Hanson fired back on Twitter telling her to pack her bags and piss off back to Pakistan. Faruqi took her to court and in 2024, a judge ruled the post was seriously offensive and a strong form of racism.