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Qantas reaches agreement with speechwriter on book

written by australianaviation.com.au | July 20, 2015

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The empty Qantas Sydney Aiport domestic terminal during the 2011 grounding. (Seth Jaworski)

Qantas has reached a confidential out-of-court settlement with former speechwriter Lucinda Holdworth, who had planned to publish a memoir, entitled Fighting Words, that would have detailed behind the scenes discussions and decisions taken during the airline’s controversial 2011 industrial grounding.

Qantas took legal action to prevent the book’s publication, arguing it contained confidential information damaging to the airline. In June the NSW Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction preventing the book’s publication.

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In a statement today Qantas said “the current injunction applying to the publication of the manuscript will stay in place, due to the commercial in-confidence nature of the content.”

Holdworth told the ABC that the agreemen was “not the outcome I was hoping for. But Qantas is entitled to insist upon its contractual rights. It has done so, and I accept that.”

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Comments (4)

  • Ray E

    says:

    Surely one day this book will be released. Would be very interesting

  • Raymond

    says:

    Yes, when it doesn’t matter any more and/or when the fallout will be minimal.

  • Geoff

    says:

    I hope they paid her a lot, as she both resigned from the company and did not publish her potentially interesting book. Shame she did not give it to “60 minutes, they have deeper pockets to fight on. Would have been an interesting read.

  • Craigy

    says:

    Interesting maybe but this woman took the privileged position she had and sought to make money from it. Present when strategic discussions were had including when all the commercially sensitive issues were raised.She had no right to go off and publish a book just like a house keeper for a celebrity has no right. In both cases,any discussions etc should be subject to privacy.

Comments are closed.

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