I'm actually going to defend Qantas a little bit here: I think the award availability is a result of a perfect storm right now of;
- Post-COVID many people have more points balances than usual
- Reduced schedules
- More people travelling
- More people wanting to travel in a premium class than pre-pandemic (e.g., but also anecdotally)
- Most likely resulting in a reduction in last-minute releases of award space
- Cancellation/change fee waivers
Call me naive, but I think the situation will improve over time. I also (unless someone has information to the contrary) doubt Qantas has released meaningfully less award seats vs. previous years on a per-flight basis. Of course, there's less flights so in terms of absolute numbers it is probably less.
What actually is problematic in my opinion is the continuing ticketing/flight change issues with award tickets, especially complex OWAs. The limited availability I can understand, but what really gets me is I have to sweat every time I get a flight change email hoping that Qantas will issue a new e-ticket in time.
I'm not blaming the flight changes themselves (and they're often partners making the changes anyway), but in no world should a simple flight change by a partner cause one to lose their entire itinerary because Qantas didn't re-ticket in time.