I used to work for the company that does these polls - but they have since moved their work to McNair.
It's legit, they are contracted by Qantas, they've been doing it for quite some time, it's not always about the union - it's about everything: Qantas in the media, how important is safety, frequent flyer status, etc etc.
1. Someone asked why they do it by phone and not by web survey:
Usually such research takes plus by phone AND the web -- but not always. Since they are a formal research company, it's important to distinguish between web and phone results. Some people are just not web-centric and can't type, or don't have access to the internet - so sometimes the best way is to just call them.
They also never offer incentives for doing the survey because it would bias the results. Other companies they do research for, such as mobile phone companies, I'm positive that the clients could easily offer incentives of say, $5 credit or 100mb free per survey - but never in all the time I worked there was there EVER an incentive offered for doing a survey - they don't want any bias in their results - either you take the survey and answer honestly, or you don't take it at all.
2. So called "push-polling"
Qantas has been accused recently on this forum of spin-doctoring the current union-strike issue, such as by setting up their website (qantasanswers.com.au). I think it's *possible* that they took the opportunity to, later in the survey, after they've gotten your general opinion on the union-strike issue, put forward their point of view in the form of a statement *disguised* as a question.
Of course if you take offence to their attempt to preach to you about their perspective, you can spend the rest of the survey clearly taking the union's side, but they will weigh this up with your previous answers. The surveys are structured that certain opinions are obtained more than once throughout -- much like certain psychology tests have built-in questions to verify later questions, to ensure that the person isn't randomly selecting answers or suddenly changes their approach.
Bottom line:
On the whole, these surveys are not marketing, they are usually genuine research surveys from Qantas, used to improve and maintain its customer service. The interviewers are not trained to be pushy (and of course there will be some exceptions) and they are not salesman. They do not earn commission on the more surveys they do etc. Their pay is the same whether they do 1 interview or 20 interviews in that shift. It also costs clients like Qantas a fortune - each survey is probably costing them maybe $25 (just a wild estimate - I wasn't on that side of the company). The only unscrupulous thing that may happen is that they take the opportunity to pass on a message to you in the later parts of the survey -- and I'm not saying that's what happened here, I'm only guessing.
Bottom, bottom line:
If you don't want to do the on-the-whole genuine survey, simply say 'No'!
