Rumour mill

Heard on the radio this morning, a rumour is flying around that the reason for Qantas closing its Sydney airport heavy maintenance facilities is not that it was *required* as a cost-cutting measure, but that the airport operator, Macquarie Bank, has opted to terminate Qantas' lease on the space in order to refurbish the area as a retail hall.

Is this true? Or is it just a rapidly generated urban legend, telling us all "what's really going on" in the world of corporate greed once again serving institutional shareholders before the workers who generate their profits and consumer safety?

If it does turn out to be true, how long does the continued privatisation of tax-payer owned infrastructure get to shit on Aussie workers from a great height before the voters will tell Canberra that economic rationalism is an evil ideology and anyone who advocates it is committing political suicide?

The heavy maintenance group at Sydney Airport employed hundreds of highly skilled workers earning a wage sufficient to support a family and a mortgage. A huge new retail hall will still offer hundreds of jobs, but they will be lowly skilled retail work and will not offer a wage to support a family, let alone a mortgage as well.

Privatisation is not an Aussie's friend.

UPDATE: the rumour apparently arises from the Brisbane Courier-Mail in a story published on 9 March. There has been no followup on this story from any other media since.