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Call it ‘Dumb and Dumber’, if you will. I’d use stronger and more ‘Aussie’ words, but I won’t offend Kiwi softies [Editor’s note: I said no. I have a limited amount of asterisks available]. Anyway: when Australians see Anthony Albanese and Alan Joyce backslapping each other, they don’t know whether to reach for the bricks or the barf bags. Even worse for Albanese is revelations of scarfing up freebies from Qantas.
It’s shocking optics for Albanese especially. The PM lumbered himself with the ‘Airbus Albo’ tag in the first week of his office, when he rushed to be sworn in the very day after the election simply so he could jet right off overseas the next. In the first six months of his term, the majority of it was spent outside Australia. The perception was immediate and damaging: this was a man out to simply enjoy the perks of office; Australians could get stuffed, for all he cared.
Just weeks ago, Albanese shot himself in the foot again, splurging over four million on a luxury clifftop mansion. Yet again, the impression was of a PM who was feathering his nest while his government ran the country into the ground.
Now, gobbling up quid pro quo from Alan Joyce. The last thing Albanese would want, heading into an election year, is being associated with the most hated man in Australian aviation.
Anthony Albanese claims he has been fully transparent about receiving free flight upgrades courtesy of Qantas, sparking a war of words with the author behind revelations about the Prime Minister’s close relationship with former airline boss Alan Joyce.
As always, explaining is losing.
Getting caught out living it up like a prince when the rest of Australia is struggling through twin cost-of-living and housing crises, is losing bigly.
Former columnist and author Joe Aston – whose book on Qantas under Mr Joyce revealed Mr Albanese’s freebies – accused him of being misleading and ‘gold-plating’ his holidays.
The flight upgrades to destinations including London, Hawaii and Dubai date back from 2009 up until 2019, and include the period the Labor leader held the Infrastructure and Transport portfolio from 2010 to 2013.
Worse, it was quite the family affair.
Mr Albanese said his son received access to Qantas’s prestigious Chairman’s Lounge when his relationship with his wife ended. “I put out a media release when my marriage ended, you can’t be more transparent than that,” he said. “My ‘plus one’ became my son.”
Except that, according to Aston, Albo’s little boy got his membership long after the PM’s marriage broke down – when his ‘plus one’ was in fact his new squeeze.
All of Albanese’s excuses can’t paper over the fact that, as minister responsible for overseeing the aviation industry, he was glad-handing tens of thousands of free gifts from the CEO of Australia’s biggest airline. An airline the CEO was in the process of running into the ground. An airline, moreover, that Albanese personally intervened to protect.
“I think the Prime Minister needs to give an explanation. And did he declare to have direct contact with Alan Joyce and when his government made a very pivotal decision around airline competition in this country by blocking Qatar, bringing more flights, driving up more competition in this country,” [Nationals Leader David Littleproud] told Nine News.
If Albanese thinks this stink is going to waft away soon, he’s got another think coming.
Independent MP Allegra Spender has hit out at Anthony Albanese’s “cosy relations” with former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce after a series of political missteps on airline regulation from the Labor government […]
Avoiding questions on Anthony Albanese’s reported request of Qantas upgrades from former chief executive Alan Joyce on at least 22 occasions, Jim Chalmers says he is “not sure” if he ever accepted upgrades.
You can bet, if they’re hammering Chalmers this hard, there’s skeletons in his closet, too.
