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The Federal Court has this morning levied a record penalty against Qantas for general protections breaches, ordering it to pay $90 million in total.

The maximum possible fine Qantas could have received was $121 million (based on the 1,820 workers impacted), and the Transport Workers Union argued this was appropriate.

However, finding that Qantas was "the wrong kind of sorry" for its breaches, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee said the price of its contraventions "must be very large, but... not greater than necessary to achieve the object of deterrence"...