Power of the Chairman’s Club
Thread Starter
A Joyceful Farewell – looming strike at Qantas’ miners carrier
by Michael Sainsbury | Aug 21, 2023 | Business, Latest Posts
Image: Qantas, TwitterWhile Alan Joyce continues to bask in the glory of his Qantas farewell tour, all is not well at the airline’s Network Aviation subsidiary. With a growing number of pilots paid well below award wages, strike action may impact on FIFO workers and threaten mining profits. Michael Sainsbury reports.
Last Sunday, at a meeting in Perth, pilots belonging to the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP), which covers about 80% of the around 240 pilots at Network Aviation, agreed to proceed with an application for Protected Industrial Action (PIA).
That’s the same route that the division’s flight attendants plan to go down after a successful PIA vote was tallied last week, “much to the concern of management”, as one insider said. Both pilots and flight attendants are the worst paid in the Qantas Group, according to documents seen by MWM. They also miss out on rostering flexibility, optional time off and their staff perks – including basics such as meals – are down a rung from staff on the East coast.
MWM has learned that Network’s cabin crew, totalling about 300, could be on strike within a week.
Perth based Network Aviation started life as a mining charter specialist, catering to the countless thousands of fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) workers who operate Australia’s economic engine room, the iron ore mines of the Pilbara and their copper, zinc, nickel and lithium cousins. This remains its main business, but it is fast expanding into regular passenger services. It has taken over Qantas routes from Perth to Darwin, and insiders say plans to add flights from Perth to Adelaide and Hobart are well advanced.
A strike action has the capacity to severely upend Australia’s mining sector, as well as souring Alan Joyce’s farewell tour. Qantas’ resources are stretched, as one insider says, “to breaking point;” On any given day, a sick pilot or cabin crew member can throw the entire group into turmoil. Even staff now call it “Jetstar with a red tail,” – due to its ultra low-cost model.
Employee survey results
To add more angst to Alan’s victory lap, well certainly for his successor, the airline’s hapless finance chief Vanessa Hudson, a recent survey of Qantas’ Sydney International Base pilots distributed by Sydney International base manager Georgina Sutton, has excoriated management and the company’s once-famed culture. That’ll be one of the many issues for his successor, the airline’s hapless finance chief Vanessa Hudson, to remedy.With 41% participation, it found that “Employees do not feel like they are treated with respect at work” that they have a
Lack of comfort voicing ideas and opinions, and a belief that opinions and ideas cannot be shared openly or without fear of retaliation.
A whopping 74% found that “the employee experience” did not meet their expectations, indeed only 5% found that it did, 22% were neutral. The kicker, despite Joyce and his senior team’s famous “town hall” events, allegedly designed for exactly that, was the: “Lack of open and honest communication at the Qantas Group.”
Of course, rather than being chastened by the survey, Qantas cosseted white collar managers are angry because, after all, it’s all about them – rather than staff or customers.
This dire lack of communication extends to the company’s dealings with the media. MWM has asked about two male pilots who suddenly left the group in recent months, following two separate incidents in Bangalore, India that involved inappropriate behaviour with women – including a flight attendant. The Qantas chief spin doctor Luke Enright – whose official title is the rather grand Head of External Affairs – would neither confirm nor deny the events. He referred instead to “gossip and rumours” – rather than answering legitimate questions.
Private equity play
Seasoned observers of Alan’s strategy of running Qantas like a private equity play will know that this is catnip to the annual multi-millionaire: swap out Qantas mainline aircraft with Network planes, often repainted, ageing Jetstar A 320s, and slash costs by using pilots and cabin crew on significantly lower wages that those they have replaced. Slice and dice, divide and conquer.The Network Aviation Pilots Enterprise Agreement 2016 expired in October 2020 and over the past seven years of operating under this agreement, Network Aviation has experienced substantial growth. The number of pilots and aircraft has more than doubled, alongside the addition of a new A320 fleet. This growth has not, however, been reflected in the pilot industrial space.
“Without a suitable agreement in place and with salaries frozen under the 2016 Agreement, Network pilots’ pay has decreased compared to the minimum Award equivalent. In 2022, approximately 62 pilots were paid below the minimum Award equivalent, with the majority experiencing a shortfall of around $7,200. This number increases every year a new enterprise agreement is delayed,” AFAP said in a summary note obtained by MWM.
The union noted in its latest counter-claim to Qantas that its Fokker 100 pilots saw a “drop of nearly 24% in effective salaries in the previous 15 years.”
“The striking disparity exists in the total remuneration received by Network Aviation pilots compared to their counterparts in Qantas Short Haul. It is estimated that Network Aviation pilots receive approximately 50% less in remuneration,” the AFAP claim noted. That’s half pay for flying Perth-Darwin on an A320 compared with a Qantas mainline flight on a near identical 737. Customers, of course, pay the same price.
AFAP pilot membership numbers have doubled in the last year at Network Aviation with pilots leaving the Qantas union the Australian International Pilots Union, whose president Tony Lucas has an office near the Qantas Industrial relations boss, and the Transport Workers Union, which has long had designs on broader representation of pilots. Some maintain dual membership due to insurance commitments.
One manager, when told of impending industrial action by NA flight attendants, said that she was “disappointed”. Not as disappointed as the flight attendants and pilots – arguably the hardest working crews in the entire groups – who are paid wages that have, at times, been under award.
The long goodbye
And so to Corporate Australia’s longest goodbye, which began back in February when Alan said that he would depart “before the end of 2023”. Then, on March 31 when Joyce held the COVID-delayed 100th anniversary bash for what is now, surely, the Limping Kangaroo replete with 1,200 guests and glittering hand picked entertainers, including Kylie Minogue.This was the surest sign yet that Australia’s, nay the entire globe’s best, at least the best remunerated, airline CEO would finally pack it all in and retire to a comfy life in Australia’s boardrooms and arts organisations.
Since then, Alan’s adoring public has been drip fed, bit by bit. In April, after an exhaustive international search, the Qantas board star studded with people – well all but one – who have precisely nil experience in the airlines sector – came up with a short list of two people who sit in the airlines’ mahogany row in Mascot. Along with Hudson, there was Joyce’s long time bag carrier, Loyalty chief Olivia Wirth. Once Hudson’s victory was secured, she wasted no time shuffling the executive deck, promoting loyalists and leaving Wirth stewing in her old job. So much for the sisterhood.
Hudson’s ascension was announced on May 1, but with the proviso that Joyce would not actually leave until six months down the track in November. He needed this unusually long time because there were many parties to throw and attend, a house to sell, bumper results to announce and more cash to shovel out the door to shareholders. Instead of investing in his increasingly threadbare fleet and maintenance division. And you know, letting go of a sinecure that has earned him over $130 million over 15 years must be tough.
But now it is up to Hudson to start spending money to fix the company’s fleet, wrestle with increasingly restless, uppity unions? All threatening the airline’s hallowed share price – and the Qantas board’s sleepy compliance with management.
Qantas, under the stewardship of Alan Joyce, has become the textbook case of neo-liberal corporatism. The company became the largest ever recipient of public funding during Covid, yet its aggressive workplace relations and its brawls with the unions led to a cultural decline.
Even though the hard tactics were welcomed by business groups and investors, the decline in customer service and efficiency, along with the declining staff morale, led to an erosion in public confidence and damage to the famous brand.
That was compounded when the Federal Court twice found Qantas to have sacked workers illegally in a suit by the Transport Workers Union (TWU).
Qantas took its case to the High Court to appeal on grounds the Fair Work Act had not been interpreted properly.
Thread Starter
Anthony Albanese’s son in PwC internship
Joe Aston and Myriam RobinAug 20, 2023 – 8.15pmSave
Share
It’s coming up on three weeks since this column published the revelation that Anthony Albanese had procured a membership of the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge for his adult son Nathan and never declared it on the parliamentary register of interests.
This cannot be brushed aside as normal. Yes, all federal MPs and their spouses are given Chairman’s Lounge membership. But in the 15 years Alan Joyce has been chief executive of Qantas, no other serving prime minister – and no other politician, full stop – has prevailed upon the airline to also provide Chairman’s Lounge membership to their progeny.
Anthony Albanese should exercise better judgment, and proper disclosure. Alex Ellinghausen To this day, Albanese still has not been required to answer a single question about this. Not in multiple television and radio interviews. Not in question time by the Liberal and National parties, nor by the teal independents – all elected on a platform of restoring integrity to the parliament and all of whom, upon their election, accepted membership of the Chairman’s Lounge. Albanese refused to take questions at a major Qantas media event he headlined with Joyce last week.At this point, we have another revelation. In the first half of 2021, while he was still opposition leader, Albanese had a conversation with PwC’s then government relations boss Sean Gregory, who was pushed out of the firm in June in the scattergun purge over the tax leaks scandal.
According to multiple sources within PwC, Albanese and Gregory discussed an internship at PwC for Albanese’s son Nathan. Gregory then passed on Nathan’s information to the firm’s HR department and in June 2021, Nathan completed a two-week, unpaid placement in PwC’s Economics & Policy Unit in Sydney under PwC’s chief economist Jeremy Thorpe. At a function months later, the Labor leader thanked PwC chief executive Tom Seymour for organising the internship, which was the first Seymour even knew about it.
PwC declined to comment. In an email, a spokesman for the prime minister said, “What you have suggested is incorrect” but then declined to clarify what was incorrect. The Prime Minister’s Office also declined to return multiple phone calls.
Bear in mind, there is no unpaid two-week internship program at PwC. There is no application process open to the public. There is no twice-yearly intake. This is an opportunity provided on an individual, ad hoc basis almost exclusively to the relatives of influential people.
It’s an opportunity provided reluctantly. No undergraduate student is qualified to do any productive client work, so menial tasks must be invented to occupy them. What’s more, their access to information at PwC is highly restricted because of – wait for it – rules around confidentiality! Major LOLs.
So, then, why would PwC do it? For one reason. The same reason you make a political donation – it’s a variation of the same theme: to earn the firm a place in the trust and good favour of that influential parent.
This is how corporate Australia operates, of course. It is how the world works. Any parent would – and does – use their connections to gain an advantage for their children. More broadly, gratuities, winks, nods and fast-tracks are all part of the game of mates in the private sector.
The game of mates, however, must end where public officialdom begins. You can’t have the family of government ministers receiving undisclosed patronage from companies the government regulates or that do business with the government.
Does that make it harder for the sons and daughters of elected leaders to get ahead without their parents playing the role of advancer? Harder than the offspring of CEOs, maybe, but certainly not harder than the offspring of truck drivers or aged care nurses. Having the surname Albanese (or Howard or Keating) and the forwarding address “Kirribilli House” on your CV is a decent professional head start without Dad needing to pick up the phone.
Serious issue
Nathan, who graduated from university in October last year, now works full-time at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. It’s safe to say he’s the only junior burger in the institutional bank with Chairman’s Lounge privileges. Imagine the next trip to Melbourne. “Sorry lads, I’ll see you all on the plane – unless you’d care to join me for a grass-fed eye fillet and a half-bottle of Ruinart blanc de blancs before take-off?”His father’s first job out of uni was also at CommBank, his first and only job in the “real world” – a bloated public service organisation – before sliding irreparably into the Canberra bubble where reaching into your own wallet is almost never the done thing. Albo said last week he would never have privatised the CBA. If only. Nathan would’ve been CEO by now – or at least a member of the executive leadership team.
The staff directory of every investment bank and advisory firm in South-East Asia is loaded with the extended family of the region’s despots. Even poor princeling Alex Turnbull – an established liar under oath – toiled at Goldman Sachs in Singapore while his father was in the Lodge.
This is a serious issue because we should expect that our politicians aren’t influenced in any way by favours given to them or to members of their family. And how do we ever verify these favours if they are not declared on the parliamentary register of interests?
Perhaps emboldened by the lack of any scrutiny on the matter outside of this column, Albanese shows zero interest in coming clean on Nathan’s Chairman’s Lounge membership. This only leaves the public to wonder what else we don’t know about.
Take, in contrast, Penny Wong’s most recent updates to her register of interests. “Qatar Airways upgrade to First Class on flight QR908 from Doha to Sydney on September 25, 2022 … Hotel upgrade in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from a standard room to a Park Suite… Hotel upgrade in Paris, France from a standard room to a junior suite.” That is a woman with nothing to hide.
We are not suggesting this is the crime of the century. Nathan Albanese received no financial benefit here (although his Chairman’s Lounge membership has a monetary value). This is nevertheless a matter of legitimate public interest. The Australian media has long reported on the perquisites of the dependent adult children of prime ministers – most notably the scholarship Tony Abbott’s daughter Frances received to attend a college whose chairman, a Liberal donor, had even bought clothes for the Liberal leader.
None of this should be construed as an attack on the Prime Minister’s son, who has done nothing wrong. We would be very happy to leave Nathan Albanese out of our coverage. However, that would require his father to exercise better judgment, and proper disclosure.
The following 3 users liked this post by dragon man:
Thread Starter
You can’t help but think that if Albanese didn’t have double standards he wouldn’t have any standards.
Thread Starter
QANTAS SHOULDN’T ADD ITS VOICE TO THE REFERENDUM
Tansy HarcourtQantas boss Alan Joyce and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese grabbed the spotlight when they stood side by side last week in a Qantas hangar to unveil the Yes campaign for the voice to parliament. But the issue has led to angry questions about who chooses the national carrier’s social policies – and whether a publicly listed company should be spending its time and money promoting a sadly divisive and increasingly political policy.
Investors are hoping incoming chief executive Vanessa Hudson will be more circumspect.
Qantas, after all, has not been state-owned for about 30 years. And it uses this point – a seemingly unfair disadvantage – continually when lobbying against rivals.
The flying kangaroo argued against government support for rival Virgin Australia when the airline was near collapse during the pandemic, and tapped the same rhetoric to encourage the government to block increased competition from oil-rich state-owned airlines such as Qatar *Airways.
It did the same thing against Emirates in the early 2000s, before joining forces with them.
It was confusing, then, to see Albanese standing beside Joyce and declaring “Yes is the true spirit of Australia” while unveiling three Qantas aircraft showing off the PM’s message beside the famous kangaroo logo.
The Yes campaign has plenty of merit. But as prominent fund manager Geoff Wilson points out, so do a number of other issues, including his pet project of protecting franking credits on retirees’ dividends, which the Albanese government is looking to change.
“What about ‘Frank off Government’ on Qantas planes?” he asks. “This is a policy that is going to have a serious impact on the cost of capital and I would love to see them put that on a few of their planes.”
Adding fuel to the fire after this week’s joint press event were two revelations. One, that the PM’s son has been lolling about in Qantas’s uber-elite invite-only Chairman’s Lounge. And continuing disquiet over Transport Minister Catherine King’s decision to block rival Qatar Airways from increasing its Australian services.
As Wilson points out, there are plenty of issues “impacting the whole of Australia”.
The housing crisis is certainly one. Opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar has canned the national cabinet’s new housing target, and didn’t go as far as calling for “build more homes” to be stuck on Qantas tails, but did say the airline should stop meddling in politics.
“It’s entirely counterproductive for Qantas to be weighing in on political issues open for public discussion and ultimately a vote,” said Sukkar. “I suspect most Australians would like a little less virtue signalling from Qantas and more focus on having their planes take off on time, or at all.”
He may have a point. Qantas is swimming in money at the moment as record demand outstrips supply – helped of course by airlines such as Qatar not being allowed extra flights even after helping Australia and the US evacuate people from Afghanistan.
But while profits boil over, the airline has struggled with customer service, being the No.1 for complaints in the country, according to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commis*sion’s latest quarterly report.
New data from Roy Morgan puts Qantas as the nation’s 13th most distrusted brand in the economy, making it the most distrusted airline, even compared with its low cost unit Jetstar, which was 16th most distrusted.
Sequoia Asset Management investment manager Winston Sammut says he would rather Qantas focus on problems such as on-time performance, customer service and rebuilding its fleet.
“I’d be a lot happier if he was focused on those issues,” says Sammut, who believes supporting the Yes vote will not add to the Qantas proposition. “At the moment there will be as many people who are happy as unhappy with it. Does it add to the bottom line? No. Will more people fly with Qantas? No.”
From a governance perspective, there is also a question about how much the board supported the call to push hard for the Yes campaign.
The decision to plaster “Yes” on the tails was not universally supported by the Qantas board, and while a spokesman said it did get discussed and approved at board meeting, it was not in any board paper for approval.
Mr Wilson says this kind of decision should require clear board endorsement.
“In terms of leadership, I would be very disappointed if they made those decisions without the board agreeing to it,” says Wilson, who says he is not telling people how to vote on the voice.
Politicians’ relationships with Qantas are always fraught. On one hand the airline is benefiting from restricted supply and getting away with poor service, but on the other there is an addictive quality to the Qantas Status Credits that politicians get every time they fly – usually at the front of the plane – that keeps them hungry for upgrades and lounge privileges.
For the current Labor leader, there is also the not insignificant fact that Qantas illegally fired about 2000 union-represented baggage handlers during the pandemic, although the airline is appealing this ruling.
On Friday at the Labor Conference, Albanese defended the government’s decision to block Qatar, describing Australia as “the most competitive market in the world”, which is patently untrue on most reliable measures.
“There is already an incredibly competitive international aviation market here in Australia,” Albanese told reporters as he stepped in to defend Joyce’s airline. “Qantas aren’t able to fly into any airport that they wish to. Australian airlines have limits in where they can go. That is the way that international air services agreements work.”
Those who know Hudson say the widely-liked executive will have enough on her plate without taking such an overt stance.
The incoming boss of Qantas says the airline has been working hard to improve customer service.
It also has a massive task ahead to rebuild its fleet.
Fortunately for the Red Roo, it’s tipping a bumper full year profit of about $2.48bn, which gives it plenty of cash for planes
Tansy HarcourtQantas boss Alan Joyce and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese grabbed the spotlight when they stood side by side last week in a Qantas hangar to unveil the Yes campaign for the voice to parliament. But the issue has led to angry questions about who chooses the national carrier’s social policies – and whether a publicly listed company should be spending its time and money promoting a sadly divisive and increasingly political policy.
Investors are hoping incoming chief executive Vanessa Hudson will be more circumspect.
Qantas, after all, has not been state-owned for about 30 years. And it uses this point – a seemingly unfair disadvantage – continually when lobbying against rivals.
The flying kangaroo argued against government support for rival Virgin Australia when the airline was near collapse during the pandemic, and tapped the same rhetoric to encourage the government to block increased competition from oil-rich state-owned airlines such as Qatar *Airways.
It did the same thing against Emirates in the early 2000s, before joining forces with them.
It was confusing, then, to see Albanese standing beside Joyce and declaring “Yes is the true spirit of Australia” while unveiling three Qantas aircraft showing off the PM’s message beside the famous kangaroo logo.
The Yes campaign has plenty of merit. But as prominent fund manager Geoff Wilson points out, so do a number of other issues, including his pet project of protecting franking credits on retirees’ dividends, which the Albanese government is looking to change.
“What about ‘Frank off Government’ on Qantas planes?” he asks. “This is a policy that is going to have a serious impact on the cost of capital and I would love to see them put that on a few of their planes.”
Adding fuel to the fire after this week’s joint press event were two revelations. One, that the PM’s son has been lolling about in Qantas’s uber-elite invite-only Chairman’s Lounge. And continuing disquiet over Transport Minister Catherine King’s decision to block rival Qatar Airways from increasing its Australian services.
As Wilson points out, there are plenty of issues “impacting the whole of Australia”.
The housing crisis is certainly one. Opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar has canned the national cabinet’s new housing target, and didn’t go as far as calling for “build more homes” to be stuck on Qantas tails, but did say the airline should stop meddling in politics.
“It’s entirely counterproductive for Qantas to be weighing in on political issues open for public discussion and ultimately a vote,” said Sukkar. “I suspect most Australians would like a little less virtue signalling from Qantas and more focus on having their planes take off on time, or at all.”
He may have a point. Qantas is swimming in money at the moment as record demand outstrips supply – helped of course by airlines such as Qatar not being allowed extra flights even after helping Australia and the US evacuate people from Afghanistan.
But while profits boil over, the airline has struggled with customer service, being the No.1 for complaints in the country, according to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commis*sion’s latest quarterly report.
New data from Roy Morgan puts Qantas as the nation’s 13th most distrusted brand in the economy, making it the most distrusted airline, even compared with its low cost unit Jetstar, which was 16th most distrusted.
Sequoia Asset Management investment manager Winston Sammut says he would rather Qantas focus on problems such as on-time performance, customer service and rebuilding its fleet.
“I’d be a lot happier if he was focused on those issues,” says Sammut, who believes supporting the Yes vote will not add to the Qantas proposition. “At the moment there will be as many people who are happy as unhappy with it. Does it add to the bottom line? No. Will more people fly with Qantas? No.”
From a governance perspective, there is also a question about how much the board supported the call to push hard for the Yes campaign.
The decision to plaster “Yes” on the tails was not universally supported by the Qantas board, and while a spokesman said it did get discussed and approved at board meeting, it was not in any board paper for approval.
Mr Wilson says this kind of decision should require clear board endorsement.
“In terms of leadership, I would be very disappointed if they made those decisions without the board agreeing to it,” says Wilson, who says he is not telling people how to vote on the voice.
Politicians’ relationships with Qantas are always fraught. On one hand the airline is benefiting from restricted supply and getting away with poor service, but on the other there is an addictive quality to the Qantas Status Credits that politicians get every time they fly – usually at the front of the plane – that keeps them hungry for upgrades and lounge privileges.
For the current Labor leader, there is also the not insignificant fact that Qantas illegally fired about 2000 union-represented baggage handlers during the pandemic, although the airline is appealing this ruling.
On Friday at the Labor Conference, Albanese defended the government’s decision to block Qatar, describing Australia as “the most competitive market in the world”, which is patently untrue on most reliable measures.
“There is already an incredibly competitive international aviation market here in Australia,” Albanese told reporters as he stepped in to defend Joyce’s airline. “Qantas aren’t able to fly into any airport that they wish to. Australian airlines have limits in where they can go. That is the way that international air services agreements work.”
Those who know Hudson say the widely-liked executive will have enough on her plate without taking such an overt stance.
The incoming boss of Qantas says the airline has been working hard to improve customer service.
It also has a massive task ahead to rebuild its fleet.
Fortunately for the Red Roo, it’s tipping a bumper full year profit of about $2.48bn, which gives it plenty of cash for planes
Latest article by Joe Aston AFR Rear Window
https://www.afr.com/rear-window/anth...0230822-p5dylp
Anthony Albanese’s outhouse blows over
Joe AstonColumnist
Aug 22, 2023 – 8.00pm
Finally, on Monday, Anthony Albanese was asked to explain his procurement (and non-disclosure) of two favours for his adult son: membership of Qantas’ exclusive Chairman’s Lounge and a custom internship at PwC.
Anthony Albanese says he complies “completely” with the parliamentary register of interests. Eddie Jim
“My son is not a public figure. He’s a young person trying to make his way in the world … I completely comply with all the requirements of the [parliamentary interests] register.”
Who ever said his son is a public figure? Nobody has even suggested that. That’s a classic deflection. It’s the prime minister using his adult child as a human shield to thwart legitimate questions about his own judgment and his own conduct.
This is about Albanese’s son not making his own way in the world. It’s about Albanese laying the yellow brick road for his son using the highest public office in the land, providing his son with advantages that no one else gets by soliciting favours from two vendors doing hundreds of millions of dollars of business each year with the Albanese government. One of those vendors, Qantas, run by Albo’s “great mate” Alan Joyce, has benefited commercially from the Albanese government’s incredibly suspicious interventions in aviation policy.
Can we agree that Anthony Albanese is a public figure? If so, did he solicit a Chairman’s Lounge membership for his son and why won’t he declare it? They’re simple questions with simple answers. They are questions for a man who only 15 months ago promised to “change the way politics operates in this country” by “actually answering questions”.
Nationals leader David Littleproud intervened for a second time on Tuesday to defend the prime minister. “I have a real issue about us and the media trying to bring in family members,” he told Patricia Karvelas on Radio National, “because sometimes there are even more roadblocks than … actual advantages [in] having a surname like Albanese or Littleproud.”
Littleproud has described his own father, a former minister in the Queensland government, as like an “invisible hand” in his life. Yet nobody – repeat, nobody – is suggesting the surname Littleproud would offer any advantage. Far from it.
“When it comes to someone’s son or daughter … trying to make their way in the workforce, they need to be respected to be able to do that on their own merits,” he continued. “I’m sure that whatever he’s elevated to, whatever position he gets, he gets that on his own volition.”
Independently verified
With such powers of reasoning, you can readily see why he’s barely clinging onto his leadership. Is Littleproud seriously suggesting that the prime minister’s son was elevated to Chairman’s Lounge membership of his own volition and on his own merits? It has already been established that Albanese secured his son’s bespoke PwC internship with the firm’s chief economist by raising the matter directly with PwC’s chief lobbyist. That was independently verified by the Financial Times, the world’s pre-eminent business newspaper, which ran the story on its front page on Tuesday.
Albanese, of course, is relying on the fact that only the financial press has really been interested in this story to date. If it was running on Kyle & Jackie O, he’d be taking it seriously. It’s not, and maybe that’s because he went to Kyle Sandilands’ wedding and lent the legitimacy of his office to that numbnut. There’s another favour traded. It’s all part of Albo’s calculus.
In the political game of mates, favours are the currency. It’s no different to the stock market in that you win by providing favours when they’re cheap and easy, then collect them later at their highest value. That’s how you rise. But in that game, you blur the lines between the political and corporate worlds at your own risk.
What would it take for the prime minister to say “Yep, I did that. I was striving for my son, but I shouldn’t have, I’ve had his membership cancelled, let’s move on”. You’d have respect for him. You really would.
Yet he can’t bring himself to do that, to acknowledge this wasn’t the crime of the century, just a lapse of judgment. The cover-up is always worse than the crime and it also affords us real insight into his character.
Albanese says he’s complied with the requirements of the parliament’s register of interests. That may be true but then what farce of a register is the parliament really running? Surely there is a place for a genuine debate about that?
What public interest could there possibly be in the kind of benefits Albanese has solicited not being declared publicly? Someone please explain that to me. Are we seriously OK with MPs bowling up and extracting undeclared favours from companies the Australian government hands our taxpayer money to? Give my daughter a job, give my boy a Chairman’s Lounge membership, give my au pair a visa, fly my mistress to Italy. The itch turns into a scratch and before you know it, it’s a full-body rash.
Remember, no government vendor, no regulated business, ever trades a favour without expecting something in return and when those favours aren’t declared, they own you. If Alan Joyce came out today and said “Yep, Albo asked me for that extra Chairman’s Lounge membership and he asked me to keep it on the down-low”, the prime minister would be on his knees at the Lodge, dry-retching. Secret favours make him susceptible and that’s not what the Australian public elected him or anyone else to be.
What Albanese is asking us to believe is that none of this matters. I grew up in public housing, swallow my origin myth, I’m not as bad as ScoMo, I’m a DJ, I’m a single dad, whatever. Just pick your favourites from my smorgasbord of image management. Nobody reads the AFR, so I’ll say nothing. It’s all incorrect, my office won’t return calls, and somewhere out there a bag of hammers calling itself David Littleproud will leap to my defence.
Albo is nowhere on this, because there’s nowhere to go. The outhouse has fallen over and he’s exposed without any prospect of redeeming his modesty.
https://www.afr.com/rear-window/anth...0230822-p5dylp
Anthony Albanese’s outhouse blows over
Joe AstonColumnist
Aug 22, 2023 – 8.00pm
Finally, on Monday, Anthony Albanese was asked to explain his procurement (and non-disclosure) of two favours for his adult son: membership of Qantas’ exclusive Chairman’s Lounge and a custom internship at PwC.
Anthony Albanese says he complies “completely” with the parliamentary register of interests. Eddie Jim
“My son is not a public figure. He’s a young person trying to make his way in the world … I completely comply with all the requirements of the [parliamentary interests] register.”
Who ever said his son is a public figure? Nobody has even suggested that. That’s a classic deflection. It’s the prime minister using his adult child as a human shield to thwart legitimate questions about his own judgment and his own conduct.
This is about Albanese’s son not making his own way in the world. It’s about Albanese laying the yellow brick road for his son using the highest public office in the land, providing his son with advantages that no one else gets by soliciting favours from two vendors doing hundreds of millions of dollars of business each year with the Albanese government. One of those vendors, Qantas, run by Albo’s “great mate” Alan Joyce, has benefited commercially from the Albanese government’s incredibly suspicious interventions in aviation policy.
Can we agree that Anthony Albanese is a public figure? If so, did he solicit a Chairman’s Lounge membership for his son and why won’t he declare it? They’re simple questions with simple answers. They are questions for a man who only 15 months ago promised to “change the way politics operates in this country” by “actually answering questions”.
Nationals leader David Littleproud intervened for a second time on Tuesday to defend the prime minister. “I have a real issue about us and the media trying to bring in family members,” he told Patricia Karvelas on Radio National, “because sometimes there are even more roadblocks than … actual advantages [in] having a surname like Albanese or Littleproud.”
Littleproud has described his own father, a former minister in the Queensland government, as like an “invisible hand” in his life. Yet nobody – repeat, nobody – is suggesting the surname Littleproud would offer any advantage. Far from it.
“When it comes to someone’s son or daughter … trying to make their way in the workforce, they need to be respected to be able to do that on their own merits,” he continued. “I’m sure that whatever he’s elevated to, whatever position he gets, he gets that on his own volition.”
Independently verified
With such powers of reasoning, you can readily see why he’s barely clinging onto his leadership. Is Littleproud seriously suggesting that the prime minister’s son was elevated to Chairman’s Lounge membership of his own volition and on his own merits? It has already been established that Albanese secured his son’s bespoke PwC internship with the firm’s chief economist by raising the matter directly with PwC’s chief lobbyist. That was independently verified by the Financial Times, the world’s pre-eminent business newspaper, which ran the story on its front page on Tuesday.
Albanese, of course, is relying on the fact that only the financial press has really been interested in this story to date. If it was running on Kyle & Jackie O, he’d be taking it seriously. It’s not, and maybe that’s because he went to Kyle Sandilands’ wedding and lent the legitimacy of his office to that numbnut. There’s another favour traded. It’s all part of Albo’s calculus.
In the political game of mates, favours are the currency. It’s no different to the stock market in that you win by providing favours when they’re cheap and easy, then collect them later at their highest value. That’s how you rise. But in that game, you blur the lines between the political and corporate worlds at your own risk.
What would it take for the prime minister to say “Yep, I did that. I was striving for my son, but I shouldn’t have, I’ve had his membership cancelled, let’s move on”. You’d have respect for him. You really would.
Yet he can’t bring himself to do that, to acknowledge this wasn’t the crime of the century, just a lapse of judgment. The cover-up is always worse than the crime and it also affords us real insight into his character.
Albanese says he’s complied with the requirements of the parliament’s register of interests. That may be true but then what farce of a register is the parliament really running? Surely there is a place for a genuine debate about that?
What public interest could there possibly be in the kind of benefits Albanese has solicited not being declared publicly? Someone please explain that to me. Are we seriously OK with MPs bowling up and extracting undeclared favours from companies the Australian government hands our taxpayer money to? Give my daughter a job, give my boy a Chairman’s Lounge membership, give my au pair a visa, fly my mistress to Italy. The itch turns into a scratch and before you know it, it’s a full-body rash.
Remember, no government vendor, no regulated business, ever trades a favour without expecting something in return and when those favours aren’t declared, they own you. If Alan Joyce came out today and said “Yep, Albo asked me for that extra Chairman’s Lounge membership and he asked me to keep it on the down-low”, the prime minister would be on his knees at the Lodge, dry-retching. Secret favours make him susceptible and that’s not what the Australian public elected him or anyone else to be.
What Albanese is asking us to believe is that none of this matters. I grew up in public housing, swallow my origin myth, I’m not as bad as ScoMo, I’m a DJ, I’m a single dad, whatever. Just pick your favourites from my smorgasbord of image management. Nobody reads the AFR, so I’ll say nothing. It’s all incorrect, my office won’t return calls, and somewhere out there a bag of hammers calling itself David Littleproud will leap to my defence.
Albo is nowhere on this, because there’s nowhere to go. The outhouse has fallen over and he’s exposed without any prospect of redeeming his modesty.
Thread Starter
