Editorial: Politicians should choose best fares

Virgin Australia’s dare to Queensland MPs to give up their Qantas perks and travel with it instead certainly passes the classic pub test, writes the editor.

Virgin make a cheeky bid for Queensland government business.

While somewhat cheeky and obviously self-serving (and a little misleading, as we will get to), Virgin Australia’s dare to Queensland MPs to give up their Qantas perks and travel with it instead certainly passes the classic pub test – in that taxpayers would expect them to always book the cheapest fares.

The airline’s challenge to the state’s politicians – and bureaucrats – is that they be as careful with taxpayer money as they would be if it was their own. Makes sense.

If MPs were personally booking a flight (and paying) then they would compare fares across airlines – and if their favoured carrier is more expensive, then they would do what the rest of us do and weigh up if the perks they get when travelling with them are worth any price difference.

For many of us, we would decide those perks are worth it – and so we stay loyal, regardless of any price difference. It is therefore totally understandable why those 13 frontbenchers who say they have been gifted Qantas Chairman’s Lounge access would stick with the national carrier.

But 10 of them also have the equivalent Virgin Beyond lounge access, and so something else must be going on here – because, as we reported on Monday, about 75 per cent of state government flights are taken on Qantas. That is despite a policy that stipulates value-for-money options must be used – a policy Premier David Crisafulli says he is not going to change.

That suggests perhaps it is the lure of Frequent Flyer points that is making MPs stick with a single carrier. This, in turn, has led to calls for bureaucrats and politicians to not be allowed to keep personally the points they accrue on taxpayer-funded work trips. This is also something voters would agree with.

It is an interesting topic, sparked by a Virgin Australia submission to the federal government’s aviation green paper. In it, Virgin argues government officials should make travel decisions purely based on the best fare of the day – and not on personal preference for a particular airline or aircraft type, access to airline lounges, or the ability to accumulate status credits or points.

In a subsequent statement to The Courier-Mail regarding travel by state MPs and officials, Virgin has pointed out that the Queensland government has a stake in the airline, and so flying politicians should support the “home team” (undermining their argument, but we understand their point).

Our politicians like to talk a lot about how they are helping voters make ends meet through the “cost of living crisis” that endures now years after the pandemic.

It follows that while saving a few bucks on each flight may not seem like much, it would send a message that those same MPs are making sacrifices themselves – and making every effort to rein in spending.

Small savings do add up. While forgoing a cup of cafe coffee for a mug of instant might only save $6 a time, it ingrains good habits that can add up to big savings.

Politicians – if they are flying or booking accommodation, or even claiming a meal allowance – should always be expected to seek out the best deal. That is fair enough.

But Virgin’s suggestion that it is always the cheapest carrier is not actually true. A simple search shows that, for instance, flights between Brisbane and Cairns are not always cheaper on Virgin – particularly when it comes to the flexible fares our politicians should rightly book. And so, as we say, it is a good point – but it is also pretty cheekily made.

GET ON WITH FIXING BRUCE

The Courier-Mail’s tireless – and ultimately successful – advocacy for generational upgrades to the Bruce Highway is based on saving lives.

As we have said so many times now in this column over the past year, it is a national disgrace that almost half the highway so vital to our state is fails to rate three stars out of five for safety.

The fact that 41 lives were lost on the highway last year alone – while we campaigned for safety to be improved – is a tragedy, in that many of those loses were avoidable.

We welcomed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s $7.2bn pledge to bring the entire highway up to at least a three-star safety rating, a promise that became possible after Premier David Crisafulli agreed to put in another $1.8bn from the state.

But there is another critical need for the upgrades, too – the fact that flooding cuts our state off from itself so many times each summer, a reality that will only get worse as the climate changes.

As we reported on Monday, we are only three-and-a-bit months into 2025, but already the highway has been closed for 31 days – essentially one-third of the time. And it has been cut at 25 locations.

It is unlikely that the 1697km-long highway will ever be flood-proofed. There is just too much rain that falls in the tropics to avoid occasional closures. But there are far too many places where it is not flood-proofed enough.

The revelations that every closed day leads to $10m in economic loss is another reason to get on with it.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here