When I say “Qantas” in the context of recent media coverage, do you think “financial troubles” or “outstanding safety record”? Chances are it’s the first, and that you didn’t see any of the major papers making a big noise about an article published online in January 2014 hailing Qantas’ safety record. The site claims to be “the world’s only safety and product rating website” and recently announced its top ten safest airlines for 2013 from the 448 it monitors. And Qantas came out on top. But I bet you didn’t read about it.

The tall poppy syndrome is alive and well in Australia. For some reason we like pulling down our highest achievers, perhaps in order to maintain a level of comfortable mediocrity. Which will get us where exactly? Well about where we are today, when we are to have no local car manufacturers and our national carrier is in trouble, led by a philosophy that governs many of our day to day decisions (discussed in an earlier post).

Surely we should be making some noise about of the good news, rather than trying to media-assassinate our best and brightest by only publishing the bad.

PS: I have no affiliation with Qantas nor gain any benefit whatsoever from its fate other than whatever would apply to any other Australian citizen.