Pie attack on Alan Joyce turns tables in same-sex marriage debate

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce comes under pie attack in Perth on Monday.

A gay man — Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce — has been attacked in public allegedly because of his views on same-sex marriage.

As a community, we cannot let that stand.

The attack took place at the Hyatt Regency Perth on Monday morning. It was captured on tape, which now has been played many times. Joyce had been invited to speak at a business breakfast for 500 people. He could not have known what was in store.

The man who allegedly smacked a pie into his face was charged on Thursday with several offences and the courts will determine whether he is guilty or innocent. Earlier this week, however, a man claiming to be the person who took to Joyce with the pie told Perth radio station 6PR that he did not approve of Joyce’s decision to use the Qantas brand in the same-sex marriage campaign.

So, instead of writing a letter or holding up a protest sign, or finding another way to express his displeasure in a nonviolent way, it seems the man who assaulted Joyce bought a pie. It cost $25.95.

The radio caller said he deliberately chose lemon meringue because he figured the soft texture wouldn’t hurt Joyce.

He claimed he put the pie in a box and wrapped it like a birthday present so nobody would be suspicious. He put the box in the back of his ute and drove from his home into the city at 6am. He walked through the Hyatt hotel foyer and found the room where Joyce was due to speak. There was nobody around, so he walked up the stage, where he found a gap between the curtain and the stage, and hid in there, waiting and listening while staff set up the room for breakfast.

Two hours later, when Joyce took to the podium, the radio caller said he emerged from his hiding place, took hold of Joyce’s shoulder, and smashed his face with the pie. The crowd in the room seemed not to know what to do. Some guests, assuming it was a joke, began to laugh. Joyce also looked confused, as if he too didn’t know whether this was part of the show.

It was not.

Joyce went backstage and cleaned himself up; he made some playful remarks when he subsequently returned, joking that he hadn’t had a chance to taste the pie. “It was mostly on my glasses,” he said. “My issue is I need a good drycleaner before I leave Perth, so if you have one, please recommend it.”

This perhaps explains why some of the early commentary was likewise playful. Some of the tweets that went out said things such as: “Have they got the offender in custard-y?” After all, a pie in the face is, culturally, a sight-gag. It comes from the movies. The Three Stooges pie-faced each other, and Bugs Bunny likes to pie-face the Coyote, which makes it sound like a bit of fun.

But actually it’s not.

Commentator Conrad Liveris, who is gay, penned a thoughtful piece for The West Australian, about the humiliation and degradation inherent in a pie attack.

“You can’t recover from it on the spot, you can’t shake it off and you need to stay composed even though you are so filthy you need a shower and a dry cleaner,” he says.

“A citrus, creamy pie sticks to you like nothing else. You don’t feel clean for the rest of the day.”

He is quite right. It is designed to make you feel dirty. Uncomfortable. Humiliated.

The alleged perpetrator has been described as a fundamentalist Christian, which is odd since Christ was not big on belting people with pies. The man has released a statement saying he is opposed to the intervention by public companies in the same-sex marriage debate.

He says he acted because “Alan Joyce is paid $13 million to run airlines, not bulldoze Australia socially against its will … Middle Australia completely rejects corporate bullying aimed at social engineering. Qantas is insulting many staff and passengers with their (same-sex marriage) propaganda.” Other companies taking part in the same-sex marriage campaign include Fairfax Media, Foxtel, ANZ bank and Airbnb. They have all been criticised, including by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, who also opposes Joyce “using the Qantas brand” to campaign for same-sex marriage.

Dutton has told the chief executives in the campaign to “stick to their knitting”.

“Mr Joyce is an exceptional CEO. He’s a good person and I know him personally — I have no gripe against him,” Dutton says. “But if he has a particular view on any issue it should be expressed as an individual.”

Meaning, he should take care of business and leave social engineering or social change to … well, to who, exactly? To the community? Or to politicians? Is Dutton saying that business has no role to play in shaping ­policy? That’s clearly false. Business lobbies for all kinds of things all the time: tax breaks, infrastructure spending, and so on.

Business leaders last year famously spent an afternoon aboard their yachts off the coast of Port­sea, moaning about how they have to pay weekend penalty rates to shop assistants.

You can disagree with Joyce when he says business also has a role to play in shaping social policy. What you can’t do is assault him. In debating this story, it is worth remembering how rare a specimen the Qantas chief is: Joyce is rich, successful and gay. That’s a combination not commonly seen in Australia.

He grew up in Ireland, where it was illegal to be homosexual. When Joyce came to Australia in 1996, homosexuality was still illegal in Tasmania.

Joyce has been with his partner, Shane Lloyd, since 1999. That’s some commitment, right? But they can’t get married here. He sees that as an affront and he has told reporters that he’s emboldened by the pie incident.

“What happened yesterday has reinvigorated me, in actual fact,” he said. “It has really encouraged me to continue to be out there and express my views even more strongly than I have done in the past.”

What’s interesting is how the incident turns the debate about the same-sex marriage campaign on its head. Until now, it was same-sex supporters who were seen as the bad guys. They’ve been accused of harassing opponents, waging Twitter wars and shutting down debate with their threats and their boycotts, and none of this is acceptable.

But who has actually been assaulted? A gay man, for his beliefs — which brings us right back to the beginning: as a community, we cannot let that go.

facebook.com/carolineoverington

Note: The alleged perpetrator in the attack on Alan Joyce has been charged with common assault, trespass and damage. He is due to face a Perth court on June 7. Comments are closed for legal reasons.