‘Upgrade Albo’ stumbles over heavy political baggage
It’s high time we got to the bottom of the Prime Minister’s relationship with Alan Joyce.
Speaking about an affiliation with the British Labour Party in 1920, Vladimir Lenin said “whether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon a membership of workers but also upon the men that lead it … Only this latter determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat.”
We learned a lot about the Prime Minister’s connection to the working class this week. Not just that he’s comfortable flying high above the proles, enjoying Qantas upgrades to the pointy end of the plane while presiding over airline industry policies that affect how much mere mortals pay for flights.
We learned too that, instead of answering a direct question about soliciting a benefit from Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, Anthony Albanese segued into class war, which is even more comfortable territory for him than a first-class seat.
To understand the Prime Minister’s train-wreck week, one should go back to June 2022 when Albanese explained why ministers, including the Prime Minister, must adhere to a special set of rules over and above rules that apply to backbenchers.
“Ministers must act with due regard for integrity, fairness, accountability, responsibility and the public interest,” he wrote in the foreword to the latest version of the Code of Conduct for Ministers. “As Prime Minister, I expect my ministers to demonstrate that they are complying with these high standards of conduct, and in doing so, living up to the expectations of the Australian public.”
It’s a shame there’s not a section in that ministerial code on the obligation of ministers to answer questions simply, quickly and directly. Indeed, were it not for the Prime Minister’s extended obfuscation, one might have thought that in a head-on conflict about the facts with former Australian Financial Review journalist Joe Aston, Albanese’s account should be preferred. After all, Albo should know better than most what he did and when.
In his book published this week, The Chairman’s Lounge: The Inside Story of How Qantas Sold Us Out, Aston claims “Albanese would liaise with Joyce directly about his personal travel” and enjoyed upgrades on 22 occasions, including when he was transport minister.
These included upgrades that Albanese took while on personal overseas trips when he was transport minister in July 2009, April 2010, July 2011 and December 29, 2012. As opposition transport spokesman Albanese took free upgrades in September and October 2013 on “privately funded flights” within Australia and on “personally funded flights” from Sydney to London in November 2013, and flying home from Rome to Sydney in December 2013. In October 2016, Albanese took more upgrades on his “personally funded” return flights between Sydney and London. In October 2019, as opposition leader, Albanese took another upgrade from Qantas on a flight to Honolulu.
The front end of a Qantas jet is a rarefied world for a boy born into public housing. If his name were Joe Citizen, good luck to him. But Albanese was, at different times, opposition transport spokesman and transport minister when, according to Aston, he had Joyce on speed-dial as a travel agent to solicit freebie upgrades.
On Tuesday, Albanese was asked a simple question: did he solicit upgrades from Joyce, including when he was transport minister in charge of policies that would directly affect Qantas and the travelling public? More than 1200 words later, Albanese still hadn’t answered that question. But the Prime Minister did say that he had declared a cookbook.
More than 24 hours later, on Wednesday afternoon, his office released a statement saying the Prime Minister had never got on the blower to ask Joyce for upgrades.
Did the Prime Minister solicit upgrades from Joyce via emails or text? On Thursday morning, his office said the Prime Minister didn’t text or email Joyce for upgrades.
Did the Prime Minister solicit upgrades from other senior Qantas executives? Later on Thursday came reports, via 2GB, that the Prime Minister didn’t.
Has anyone in Albanese’s office during his time in federal parliament contacted anyone at Qantas seeking a flight upgrade for Albanese or a family member?
So far, no answer.
Either the Prime Minister suffered his own early onset “Biden” moment, unable to remember the most obvious things, or he is suffering early-onset political hubris.
Either way, it’s high time we got to the bottom of Albanese’s relationship with Joyce. The facts are sufficiently unclear and the matter sufficiently important that a proper inquiry is appropriate. However, even if such an inquiry clears Albanese, the affair raises important questions.
The first concerns whether the Prime Minister and his colleagues respect the electorate or whether they just treat us as mugs. Has this government already acquired the level of hubris one usually sees only from long-term, entrenched governments? Daniel Andrews comes to mind.
On Tuesday, instead of answering a simple question – did he solicit upgrades from Joyce for seats at the pointy end of the plane – the Prime Minister and then his colleagues went straight for the ALP tricky-bugger playbook.
The first gambit is to say nothing. Stonewall. This is successful often enough – it frequently worked for Andrews. Or try another variation, namely blather – use word salads in the hope it will confuse the assembled press hacks.
If this defence doesn’t work, there are a couple of well-loved ALP fallback defences. The first is to clamber back down the class ladder. This is an Albo favourite – remember he loves fighting Tories. He took aim at his chief critic, Peter Dutton, taking “private jets” and travelling with “billionaires like Gina Rinehart”. Murray Watt joined Albo in attacking Dutton, and Clare O’Neil said it was all just a pile-on. The ALP pointed fingers furiously at all the Coalition members who got upgrades.
“I don’t have a family trust. I don’t have any shares,” Albanese said, hunkering down into that old class war of his. Ignore for one minute the hypocrisy of the recent buyer of a $4m-plus holiday home criticising others for owning assets. These appeals to class war, along with claims that everyone else does it, missed the key point so badly one has to assume it was deliberate and a sure sign of “I don’t give a stuff” hubris.
Dutton was not a minister when he flew on Rinehart’s private jet and there is no evidence he has ever been involved in any decision that conferred a specific benefit on Rinehart or her companies that others in her position did not get.
This key point – that Albanese took or solicited freebies from a company he was responsible for regulating – so obviously stinks.
Compounding the problem, the Albanese government’s rejection of Qatar Airways’ bid to expand its operations in Australia helped Qantas by shielding it from more competition. It affected Australians. You don’t need an economics lesson to understand that less competition translates into high prices and a lousy product.
Further compounding the problem is that the Albanese government rejected Qatar’s request in unclear circumstances.
So, what was Albanese’s role in that decision?
The lame defence of the Prime Minister by a phalanx of Labor ministers and backbenchers claiming the Albanese government had been tough on Qantas for underpaying workers added insult to injury.
Just as one might declare a cookbook on one day and fail to declare flight upgrades on another day, the Prime Minister can attack Qantas for proven breaches of the law, on the one hand, and hand out favours to Qantas with the other, by denying Qatar Airways valuable slots at major airports.
The hubris, the tricky diversionary tactics are a world away from the gentler, more honourable government Albanese promised us, and lead to the second key question. When is it ever OK for a minister to take benefits from a company they regulate?
Senator David Pocock was right on to this point – can mere disclosure ever justify a minister taking benefits from an entity about which they make critical regulatory decisions?
It’s a pox on both houses that neither side has ensured that the ministerial code of conduct prohibits a transport minister or prime minister accepting upgrades so obviously worth thousands of dollars from an airline that they regulate. A simple rule would immediately get rid of the conflicts of interest, whether perceived or real, facing Albanese.
The last person to amend the code of conduct was Albanese in 2022. His Labor government is especially happy making new rules to regulate our behaviour every day – what about regulating its own by adding a few extra rules to the ministerial code to stop upgrades worth thousands of dollars being used to entice favourable treatment from government?
The final lesson from this saga concerns who is really interested in integrity. To his credit, Pocock has been clear, consistent and forthright. Those teals who have donned an invisibility cloak this week are hypocrites of the worst kind. They campaigned proudly for better integrity in politics at the 2022 election. Their silence now suggests they have a problem with greater integrity. They look like just another opportunistic political party ditching principle for base politics. Fancy that.
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