The Mocker: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese just a working (business) class man

Anthony Albanese likes to paint himself in the mould of Jimmy Barnes' working class man.

Working hard on getting upgrades

He loves the front end of the plane

A father/son in this carry-on

Hey Albo please explain

‘Cause it don’t seem to me you’re a working-class man

Well he insists ‘Hey, I’m a houseo’

He’s a legend in his mind

He talks of his privations

With his first-class seat reclined

Moët, canapes for this working-class man.

Believes in flying often

He gets out when he can

He never flies in economy

He just rings his mate Alan

He’s a shallow and entitled man

Always putting out his hand

So – he’s no working-class man

Well he loves his little woman

Someday he’ll make his wife

And together with his young bloke

They have the Chairman’s Lounge for life

He ain’t worried about fare prices

Because he just made up his mind

A sweetheart deal means he will forever

Travel first-class for a dime

Oh, oh, oh, oh, there’s your working-class man

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha

He’ll tell you he’s a working-class man!

Apropos of Albo – have you ever called former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce personally to seek an upgrade for your flights? It would take most of us around two seconds to reply. But for Anthony Albanese, it is a most complex question.

Actually, I would go further and say in Albanese’s case it is one of the most complicated questions he has ever faced. In terms of complexity it is up there with “Have you ever won an Olympic gold medal” or “Did you ever go on a date with Christie Brinkley” or “Have you ever done a swan dive from the Empire State Building”.

But as Albanese would tell you, he is not afraid of the big questions. He just prefers the media ask him sensible ones related to his line of work as he sees it. You know, something like “What is Toto’s favourite snack” or “How did it feel when you discovered your chip packet had more air than crisps”.

Speaking last week in Newcastle, he refused to share his expertise in airfare alchemy. That was a pity, because as someone who has no love for cattle class, I was eager to hear how he managed to bag at least 22 free upgrades on economy tickets when he held the transport portfolio. Was it because Joyce is fundamentally decent, kind, and generous? Had Albanese woken one morning to find first-class tickets in the bottom of his Christmas stocking? Or did he earn these upgrades by scrubbing down Qantas A380 windshields in between parliamentary sittings?

Asked whether he had prevailed upon Joyce, Albanese was both erratic and evasive. He lashed out at Peter Dutton, claiming the Opposition Leader was targeting his family. He carried on with endless whataboutism. He even attacked former Fin Review journalist Joe Aston, author of The Chairman’s Lounge: The Inside Story of How Qantas Sold Us Out and source of these allegations. Typical to form, Albanese did everything except answer the question.

At that time of that unedifying display, three days had passed since the Sydney Morning Herald had run with Aston’s exposé. You would think Albanese would have been across at least some of the details by the time of that press conference.

But instead he committed a major howler in insinuating Aston had failed to declare to his readers that he was a former Liberal staffer and that he had worked for Qantas. Taking to social media, an exasperated Aston pointed out he had disclosed both in the first line of the book’s first page. Even someone with Albanese’s attention span should have picked that up.

It took nearly a week for Albanese – this time through a spokesperson – to say in a carefully worded statement he “did not ever call Alan Joyce seeking an upgrade,” thus kicking off a game of 20 questions.

As recently as this Monday, he was dancing around questions as to whether any of his office staff had sought upgrades from Qantas on his behalf. Given the length of Albanese’s nose, you could be excused for thinking the Concorde had been resurrected.

We need not worry though, at least according to Albanese. As he has anxiously and repeatedly insisted, he has declared every single one of these upgrades. No problem then, right?

Wrong. Merely declaring these ‘gifts’ does not absolve a minister of their responsibility to avoid conflicts of interest, whether real or apparent, in the first place. While some of these situations cannot be avoided, they must still be managed in a transparent and acceptable manner.

But instead of taking steps to minimise the potential for conflicts of interest, Albanese did the opposite. It was not a case of his reluctantly accepting upgrades but rather wallowing in them. Forget the pub test and think instead the public office test. It is one he has failed and badly at that.

Take several examples from when Albanese was transport minister, a portfolio which included responsibility for regulating the airline industry, in the Rudd and Gillard governments. July 2009: upgrade to business class from Qantas on Sydney to Los Angeles return flights. April 2010: “ticket upgrade” for Albanese and son on Sydney to Rome return flights on Emirates. July 2011: Albanese “accepted upgrades from Emirates travelling unofficially to and from Europe”. December 2012: upgraded to Qantas business class on the Honolulu to Sydney flight.

The above examples involved personal travel. As Aston dryly notes, “It would be a safe presumption that he [Albanese] paid for an economy ticket in the full knowledge he would never have to set foot in that unholy cabin”.

To think at the time Albanese, in real terms, was on a taxpayer-funded salary of $400k. His then wife, Carmel Tebbutt, was NSW deputy premier for much of that period and paid the equivalent of $350k a year. For Albanese to hoover up freebies in those circumstances was, at the very least, the behaviour of a bludger.

And contrary to his claims, Albanese was not open and transparent in disclosing benefits. For example, he neglected in some cases to detail the type of upgrade, an omission that all but confirms he leapfrogged straight from economy to first-class. Neither did he disclose that Joyce, allegedly at Albanese’s request last year, had provided his son Nathan with Chairman’s Lounge membership.

One of the many unanswered questions in Qantas’s duchessing of Albanese concerns his government’s kyboshing last year of an application by Qatar Airways to double its weekly flights to Australia’s four major cities.

At the time of Qatar’s application in 2022, its competitor Qantas had slashed its number of post-Covid flights while charging Australians exorbitant prices for existing (and as it turned out non-existing) ones. Naturally, Qantas did not welcome Qatar’s application. But as Aston details, the Department of Infrastructure and Transport supported the proposal, as did Trade Minister Don Farrell and (initially) Transport Minister Catherine King. Why she later did a volte-face has never been explained satisfactorily.

Asked in parliament in September 2023 whether he or his office had provided “any direction, information or advice” to King to block the application, Albanese responded with his customary weasel words.

“This was a decision to change nothing that occurred, and one of the things that I do, as Prime Minister, is not appoint myself to other jobs,” he said. “I trust my ministers to make decisions.”

Initially, according to King, ‘her’ decision to block Qatar’s application was in the “national interest”. Presumably, it is also in the national interest to reward Qantas or more specifically Joyce, whether it be for price gouging passengers, depriving of them their entitlements through labyrinthine processes, sacking thousands of workers unlawfully, and treating Australians with contempt.

Admittedly that decision was detrimental for thousands of would-be travellers, many of whom are flat out paying for a ticket in economy, let alone one at the pointy end of the plane. But let us not forget priorities, people. It is in the national interest for the prime ministerial tush to be resting comfortably on a first-class cushion when his nibs is holidaying.

Designer bedding, gourmet dining, fine wines, luxury toiletries, the thrill of exclusivity and hobnobbing it with the rich and famous – bring it on. But as Albanese has belatedly discovered, it includes everything except a parachute.