Talk of the Town: Does Qantas still have that Aussie spirit?

I'm pretty proud to call him my great-great-uncle because the more I hear about him, the more I'm impressed with not only his astuteness but his humanity.

Rather than treating the Light Horsemen he led as objects, he would withdraw from battles that he thought would sacrifice too much life for no sure outcome.

So many people on the weekend recounted stories they'd learnt about Harry to me - he's probably best known as the architect of the Light Horse charge at Beersheba in the Sinai-Palestine WWI conflict - but we were in Tabulam to honour the memory of the battle of Romani and what was achieved there.

Australia's mounted units stayed in Egypt after their withdrawal from Gallipoli, to fight the Turks there, and it was when the Ottoman empire's army thrust towards the Suez Canel for a second time that Chauvel and his Anzac Mounted Division, the only desert-worthy Allied force in Sinai, came into their own.

Thanks to his understanding of the terrain and tactical withdrawals, with only two of his four brigades under command, Chauvel outfought the Turks in blazing heat.

In doing so, the canal's shipping resupply lines stayed open and in the words of the speakers at dinner on Saturday, the British empire was saved.

The Ottomans lost 5000 fighters, 4000 of them taken prisoner. Most of the 1130 Allied casualties were suffered by the Anzacs.

One of them was Major Mick Shanahan, who incidentally came from Roma in the Maranoa, who galloped wildly through enemy ranks to rescue four Tasmanian troopers unhorsed in the fighting and carry them 5km to safety.

His horse was Bill the Bastard.

Shanahan was awarded a Distinguished Service Order and Bill became the only non-human to have a grave at Gallipoli.

Let's compare that record with that of hastily-retired Qantas CEO Alan Joyce.

Transport Workers Union national secretary Michael Kaine put it well when he said "Alan Joyce is slipping into retirement two months early with a $24 million pay packet, leaving one of the biggest messes in corporate Australia's history in his wake".

The airline faced a wave of scrutiny in recent weeks over allegations it sold tickets for 'ghost flights' and lobbied the federal government to reject Qatar Airways' bid to increase flights to Australia.

"After finally receiving the public scrutiny he deserves for trashing one of Australia's most cherished companies, Alan Joyce is exiting with a $10 million bonus - he must be stripped of those immediately," Mr Kaine demanded.

It's those words "Australia's most cherished company" that made me compare Joyce's work with that of our WWI soldiers.

One forged our national identity at Gallipoli and the other, begun by returned servicemen, became a symbol of Australian quality.

Our national flagship carrier has been losing some of its lustre for a while - I think of the many stories I've written about exorbitant fares rural Queenslanders have been charged, thanks to a lack of competition - but Joyce exemplified a culture of profit over people.

Stand him beside Harry Chauvel and I know who I would want leading me in tough times.

- Sally Gall, North Queensland Register senior journalist

Talk of the Town is a weekly opinion piece written by ACM journalists. The thoughts expressed are their own.