The commercial woes of Qantas have blanketed the airwaves and newspapers of late, but the government’s intent to change the Qantas Sale Act to allow more foreign ownership of the airline seems unlikely to be realised in the near term.

Yet in all of the media fuss, virtually no attention has been paid to the fact that one part of Qantas has just been sold off to a foreign company—lock, stock and barrel. And it’s the sensitive side of Qantas to boot. On 27 February, Northrop Grumman Australia Pty Limited, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corporation of the United States, announced through a press release issued in Virginia that it has completed the acquisition of Qantas Defence Services Pty Limited (QDS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qantas Airways Limited, and that the acquisition is now called ‘Northrop Grumman Integrated Defence Services Pty Limited (IDS)’. That’s to say, all of Qantas’ defence-related business has been sold off to the Australian branch of an American company. Read more