Perhaps I was too hasty in my faint praise of Teal ‘independent’ Monique Ryan.
As I reported recently, Ryan is trying to take the high ground in the Qantas upgrades scandal, declaring that she voluntarily renounced her Qantas chairman’s lounge membership. What I missed was this teensy little detail:
“When I was elected in 2022, I accepted membership of the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge and Virgin’s Beyond Club.”
Wait, what?
Ryan’s confession of a Virgin Beyond Club membership has, in fact, never been known. It’s a perk that she enjoyed for almost a year but never disclosed in her parliamentary declaration of interests. That’s ironic, given disclosure of such benefits formed the foundational argument of the piece she’d just written.
Bad Mongo. Naughty Mongo.
This is, though, all of a piece with the Teals. They’re big on finger-wagging everyone else about ‘transparency’ and ‘integrity’, not so great at following their own self-righteous demands.
The discovery of a yawning gulf in the word and deed of any politician normally induces surprise, but in the case of Ryan and her teal sisters these discoveries have become routine, the amusement factor waning with the usual laws of diminishing returns.
After all, these are the ‘independents’ who dance to the tune of the billionaire nepo baby Svengali who holds their purse-strings.
The hypocrisy has been obvious since Ryan bellowed in parliament to ‘wear your mask!’ – while conspicuously not wearing a mask. That’s just the start of the hypocrisy, thought.
There’s Sophie Scamps, an aspiring property magnate with a sizeable portfolio who has the gall to whang on about housing affordability.
We all remember North Sydney MP Kylea Tink, who campaigned for climate action but later emerged as a shareholder in Viva Energy and Beach Energy, both of which make mountains of money selling oil and gas.
Tink’s explanation – that she purchased the shares to engage in “shareholder activism” – is as credible as the bunkum ginned up by Ryan over her failure to declare the Virgin membership, which we have now brought to her attention, and which she has corrected.
Ah, so it’s just an ‘administrative error’ when they do it.
Yes, when a teal fails to disclose a perk it’s known as an “administrative error”, but for anyone else elected to parliament without the slush funding of Simon Holmes a Court it’s an appalling lack of transparency requiring wholesale reform and a colorectal from the NACC.
Just like when a climate-obsessed Teal tools around in a carbon-belching tank, there’s nothing to see, here. As for Ryan, it took the multimillionaire two full years to make good on her own rhetoric and cough up for an EV.
Meanwhile, her fellow Teal, Zali Steggall, is clinging for dear life to her Qantas chairman’s lounge membership.
Since Simon Holmes à Court has given her the parliamentary seat, she’s clearly determined to enjoy it.
