Albanese’s absence leaves Labor exposed to tough questioning on Qatar-Qantas quagmire

Anthony Albanese, right, with then-Qantas boss Alan Joyce in Sydney in August. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

Alan Joyce has become politically toxic.

Labor ministers don’t even want to use his name and fear any association with the outgoing Qantas chief executive.

There has been a catastrophic confluence of Qantas’s jump in ill will, Joyce’s early departure with a $24m payout, resentment at corporate backing of the Indigenous voice campaign and political fallout over Labor’s decision to block Qatar Airlines’ bid for 28 more flights into Australia.

Barely two weeks after Anthony Albanese praised, thanked and congratulated Joyce, in front of a Qantas plane decked out in Yes 23 livery supporting the indigenous voice referendum, Labor ministers won’t let his name pass their lips.

The mob has spoken, and the backlash is deep and vicious.

The Prime Minister missed it all and walked into a political wall on Tuesday in parliament trying to play word games and tease the Coalition. Albanese paid the price for not being across the detail of the now infamous blocking of the Qatar bid that Australians have been told was a sweetheart deal for the unpopular Joyce that kept airfares higher. On Wednesday, Albanese was out of the parliamentary firing line on an official trip in Jakarta, after a Tuesday night shemozzle over his conversations about the Qatar bid, but his colleagues were left struggling in the Qantas-Qatar quagmire.

Transport Minister Catherine King had to front the questions herself and while keen to get on the offensive, she was also unwilling to be categorical in denials and fell back on the safety net of “to the best of my recollection” when it came to Joyce and Qantas.

At no stage did King utter Joyce’s name or absolutely deny she had spoken to him personally at any stage of the process.

This shows the fear of association with the now politically toxic Joyce and the danger of inexorable political scandal questions of who knew what and when?

Albanese tried for days to distance himself from the Qantas catastrophe and particularly the government’s decision to block Qatar Airways’ bid but King can’t,

She also still hasn’t explained why she seems to have told some Australian women taking legal ­action against Qatar of her decision before her cabinet colleagues.

This is shambolic and messy, with the minister blindsiding the Prime Minister and many of her cabinet colleagues, including Jim Chalmers, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Trade Minister Don Farrell, which gives Peter Dutton the political opportunity to speak about a “murky” ­situation.

Given the admission that Albanese has been flying blind politically and drawing himself further into the quagmire, expect a predictable string of Coalition questions that will keep the political problem alive and growing.