An invite to the Chairman’s Lounge would perk anyone up. But MPs should pay for it

Many years ago, due to the beneficence of my travelling companion, I was upgraded to business class on a flight between Sydney and London. The only catch – we had enough points for just one leg of the journey.

We flew in glorious luxury to Singapore, drinking meal-paired wines and ostentatiously stretching our legs. At Singapore, the come-down: a demotion to economy for the longer and more gruelling stretch of the journey. Walking past the front end of the cabin, relegated back to steerage, I felt a sense of grievance rise in my breast. There must have been some sort of mistake? Because I was a business-class person now. Right?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has emphatically denied seeking flight upgrades from Qantas.Credit: Steven Siewert

This glimpse behind the front-cabin curtain brought home how easily a sense of entitlement can arise, when one set of people is elevated above another.

It is closely related to what psychologists call hedonic adaptation – an adaptive human trait whereby, when something positive happens, a treat like getting to fly business class, the happiness it brings quickly wears off. We return to baseline. The treat becomes normal. Expected, even.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was slammed last week for the flight upgrades he has accepted from Qantas over years, when he was transport minister and, later, in opposition.

The story was kicked off by the publication of Joe Aston’s The Chairman’s Lounge, a book chronicling the ethical failings of Qantas over recent years. (Disclosure: I attended the book launch this week and partook of its free champagne. I may also have scoffed a canapé or two.)

By Thursday, the PM had put out a statement refuting the book’s assertion that he personally solicited flight upgrades from Joyce. By then it was too late – the impression of favour-seeking had set in.

The Coalition pushed for a Senate inquiry, and even a referral to the National Anti-Corruption Commission. But by Friday a bipartisan lull had fallen, when it became clear that no one came to this debate with clean hands.

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie – who had led the charge against Albanese earlier in the week – was humbled into admitting she had accepted a flight upgrade from Qantas (after earlier stating she hadn’t). Then she had to confess that she wasn’t precisely sure whether she had accepted more flight upgrades from various airlines including, but not limited to, Qantas. McKenzie said she would have to conduct an audit of her affairs and get back to the Australian taxpayer. Meanwhile, the prime minister made sure everyone knew Opposition Leader Peter Dutton had taken free private jet flights from billionaire mining mogul Gina Rinehart.

When it comes to the acceptance of favours by politicians, mutual destruction is assured because few of them have not snuck a paw into an available honeypot when offered one. The chapter of Aston’s book that deals with Albanese is actually about the eponymous Chairman’s Lounge. It is titled “A Very Valued Benefit”.

The Chairman’s Lounge, Aston writes, is “a speakeasy for Australia’s ruling class”, which “means passing the mystical velvet rope of high social status … confirmation that you’ve made it, entitling you to breathe different air to regular people”.

It has about 5000 members, or 9000 if you include approved plus-ones (usually spouses, but in the case of the prime minister following his divorce, his son Nathan).

I am told the experience of the Chairman’s Lounge is exquisite – a peaceful, gilded oasis, far from the sweaty crowds and routine discomfort experienced by ordinary flyers. You are doted on by staff. The menu is à la carte.

Your passport and travel documents are taken by a staffer who collects you when your flight is ready for boarding, at which time you are whisked past the hoi polloi. You are almost certainly not paying for your flight, or any of its associated perks, from your own pocket. The taxpayer is footing the bill, your company is, or at the very least, the cost is a tax deduction.

In essence, the Lounge represents the kind of elitism politicians might label un-Australian, when, say, on an election campaign.

But the most galling part of the Qantas largesse is how transparent it is. The company, heavily protected by government and propped up by the taxpayer, makes no attempt to hide how deliberately it curries favour with the governing class. It is simple market protection. The favours are insidious because their high monetary value is compounded by the great status they confer.

Who could resist?

Nearly no one; Aston writes in his book that “virtually every member of federal parliament” is a member of the Chairman’s Lounge, although we cannot know precisely who because they do not always disclose membership. There is no policing of this and no repercussions for not disclosing.

Imagine what being in such an environment does to your sense of entitlement.

Your fellow Loungers – business leaders, newspaper editors and top public servants – have access to you that ordinary people could never dream of. Moreover, you start to believe you belong here. This is your place. You are a member.

To be fair to politicians, it must be genuinely difficult to hold on to your moral bearings when you are elevated to such a dais of special treatment.

How to stay grounded? How to remember what it’s like to feel the difference an extra $50 a week makes in your pay packet (that’s if you ever knew it to begin with)? How to remember the struggle of getting kids to school and rushing through traffic to work, or fitting childcare around shiftwork, or the anxiety that comes when your electricity bill is due at the same time as your mortgage repayment?

How to recall the teeth-grinding frustration of spending hours on hold on the telephone, trying to scrounge a refund for the ill-fated pandemic flight you saved so hard for?

A prize – moral, but not material – to the first party leader to ban his MPs from accepting free Chairman’s Lounge membership.

If cabinet and shadow ministers, who need to work while travelling, want to use the Lounge, they should be directed to pay for it. And everyone should have to declare it.

Jacqueline Maley is a senior writer and columnist.

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