Qantas, Alan Joyce’s personal play thing.
Paxing All Over The World
Always important to support the politicians. Then support the next lot when they get in. Murdoch has brought this to a high art.
According to American Airline's Statement on "Public Policy Engagement and Political Participation"
"We regularly express our views regarding policies that might impact our business, team members, shareholders and other stakeholders – and we are committed to participation in policy and political processes in a manner consistent with exemplary corporate governance practices"
EVERY large business is engaged in influencing political outcomes ALL the time. Qantas is no different.
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AA also supported/supports the “BLM” movement which drew the ire of a lot of American conservatives. They’ve increased their revenue every year since, it doesn’t seem to have made a dent in their income despite calls to boycott the airline.
Thread Starter
What has changed from Joyce shutting the airline down with no notice when Albo was transport minister to today? They look like best mates. Qatar denied rights, support for the voice, you have to wonder.
While I know everyone likes a Qantas/Joyce pile-on, it’s worth noting that they are hardly out on their own here.
Majority of ASX 20 companies publicly support Voice
Majority of ASX 20 companies publicly support Voice
So you could have the whole crew on board one of these particular aircraft who are firmly in the NO camp, but little Al has ignored their views. Maybe any firm NO voters should refuse to operate these machines as they are being misrepresented and ignored by AL and his meathead mates. Its all about him and being woke.
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Let's see the first QF crew member (or any staff member) take a public stand against the company.
PS Don't hold your breath.
PS Don't hold your breath.
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It’s a slippery slope, no issue C suites supporting causes, but who dicides the company is behind that cause? Is it merely a CEO decision? Surely you’d think a message like this would have to come from the board.
Next they will be playing I Still Call Straya home with cutaways to…..
I wonder if Albo went and talked to some locals on his jaunt to Arnhemland? G
Next they will be playing I Still Call Straya home with cutaways to…..
I wonder if Albo went and talked to some locals on his jaunt to Arnhemland? G
"Qantas proudly supports Voice to Parliament
Authorised by ..."
adjacent to the Yes23 logo.
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. Regardless how you choose to vote, be very careful how lightly the constitution is being valued here.
And here we go…for tomorrow’s AFR, unpaywalled.
Joe Aston
Columnist
Rear Window
Anthony Albanese and Alan Joyce joined forces for a media spectacular on Monday. Before an adoring crowd and a medley of celebrities at Sydney Airport, the Prime Minister and the Qantas CEO unveiled three Qantas aircraft painted with the “Yes23” logo in support of an Indigenous Voice to parliament.
For the unacquainted, “Yes23” is Albo’s answer to the dual questions “Would you like a secret Chairman’s Lounge membership for your son and how old is he?”
Albanese and Joyce posed for photos with Adam Goodes, Noel Pearson and Linda Burney – though curiously, Qantas’ incoming CEO Vanessa Hudson didn’t make the cut.
Bear in mind, Qantas hasn’t painted entire jumbo jets in Indigenous livery, as it’s been doing since 1994. These are logo stickers that barely cover four portholes on a regional turboprop, like something a bogan would put on the back windscreen of his ute. “If this van’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’!” Joyce probably had them made at Supercheap Auto in Bexley and he can peel them off his planes at a moment’s notice. That’s how much capital he’s really expended here.
Albanese was in full rhetorical flight. “There is no company in Australia that immediately says Australia like this brand of Qantas,” he said.
So Australia is complacent, decrepit, tone deaf, immensely greedy, a bully, a welfare bludger, a horrible boss and a voracious influence trafficker? Little wonder we all suffer from the cultural cringe.
“The Spirit of Australia says yes!” he proclaimed. Since when does the Prime Minister of Australia subjugate his high office to the marketing tagline of a vendor, of a rapacious corporation? His next stop was a Suncorp event, where he told the faithful “Lucky you’re with AAMI.”
The PM’s political antenna is clearly not functioning. How could he possibly believe the Yes campaign might reverse its flagging popular support by aligning with Australia’s most complained about company, with a brand suffering from “new levels of distrust”? How could he think that holding joint campaign stops with Joyce, Australia’s most reviled business leader, is beneficial for the Voice’s prospects?
By our rudimentary grasp of it, the Voice is the pathway, preferred by First Nations leaders, to repairing entrenched Aboriginal disadvantage. And Albo is barnstorming with Alan Joyce, who earned $24 million last year and just sold another $17 million of Qantas shares to buy his neighbour’s apartment. Knocking out the wall between his penthouse and the penthouse next door – that’s Alan’s idea of closing the gap. As if mug punters identify with this guy or his values. You’d be forgiven for wondering if Albo is trying to lose his referendum.
Best of all, Albanese and Joyce invited a battalion of journalists but then refused to take a single question. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re here to pull the dust covers off our flying corflutes and to say some things that don’t make sense. Then we’re all moving on, thanks very much. Here’s my stunt on the biggest political issue of the day. The end. Show’s over.”
Since when has that been a thing in Australia? Does Albanese think he’s Narendra Modi? It’s incredibly poor form and everyone can see what’s going on here. The Prime Minister is running away from having to explain the propriety of his conduct in relation to Qantas.
He won’t take questions because some of them might be, “Why did you hit up Alan Joyce for a Chairman’s Lounge membership for your adult son? How many free upgrades has he received? Why haven’t you declared this?”
Equally, Joyce will not want to clarify the commerciality, as he sees it, of his arrangement with the Albanese family – or indeed with all parliamentarians. Incidentally, someone should ask Joyce how many Indigenous Australians he’s invited to join the Chairman’s Lounge. Not very many is a safe bet.
Remember, the great Mick Young, a hero of the post-war ALP, resigned from Bob Hawke’s ministry over an undeclared teddy bear. Were Young alive today, what would he think of Albanese’s grasping ways?
It’s a serious lapse of judgment – especially from someone who apparently cannot restrain himself from intervening in aviation policy in a manner so clearly detrimental to the economic interests of ordinary Australians.
At face value, the decision of the Albanese government to refuse Qatar Airways’ bid to operate 28 new flights per week to Australia is a disgraceful one. Albo is smiling and nodding along to Catherine King’s comical, mutating justifications for it. Her decision was really his decision, and the only beneficiary is Qantas.
The entire travel sector, airports, wall-to-wall state Labor governments and even his own Trade Minister can barely believe it. Albanese is preventing 150,000 additional foreign tourists from arriving in Australia each year. They catch Ubers, drink coffee and buy clothes. They are customers of businesses who overwhelmingly employ low-paid workers.
Albo should talk to the struggling housekeeper at the Mantra in Brisbane who misses out on extra shifts as a result of his Qatari fatwa. She just wants to get her bad teeth fixed and buy her granddaughter a Christmas present. Could the PM explain to her why her job is less important to him than Alan Joyce’s?
This is where Albanese misunderstands the politics of this issue badly. These cleaners, those shop assistants, they’re Labor’s constituency, not fabulously rich Qantas executives. People getting off welfare into casual work – some of them might even be Aboriginal. They are the battlers enduring a cost-of-living crisis. They are the single mums so central to Albo’s heroic personal origin myth. And they’re the ones most harmed by his venal decision.
That’s the realpolitik here, but Albanese seems to have no grasp of it. His self-declared priorities are fighting inflation (which would include democratising airfares) while lifting wages for working people, but he is so totally captured. He’s lived at Kirribilli House a mere 15 months. Maybe long ago he saw a light on the hill. Now he only sees the mastlights on superyachts as they pass by.
Qantas the only voice reaching Anthony Albanese
Joe Aston
Columnist
Rear Window
Anthony Albanese and Alan Joyce joined forces for a media spectacular on Monday. Before an adoring crowd and a medley of celebrities at Sydney Airport, the Prime Minister and the Qantas CEO unveiled three Qantas aircraft painted with the “Yes23” logo in support of an Indigenous Voice to parliament.
For the unacquainted, “Yes23” is Albo’s answer to the dual questions “Would you like a secret Chairman’s Lounge membership for your son and how old is he?”
Albanese and Joyce posed for photos with Adam Goodes, Noel Pearson and Linda Burney – though curiously, Qantas’ incoming CEO Vanessa Hudson didn’t make the cut.
Bear in mind, Qantas hasn’t painted entire jumbo jets in Indigenous livery, as it’s been doing since 1994. These are logo stickers that barely cover four portholes on a regional turboprop, like something a bogan would put on the back windscreen of his ute. “If this van’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’!” Joyce probably had them made at Supercheap Auto in Bexley and he can peel them off his planes at a moment’s notice. That’s how much capital he’s really expended here.
Albanese was in full rhetorical flight. “There is no company in Australia that immediately says Australia like this brand of Qantas,” he said.
So Australia is complacent, decrepit, tone deaf, immensely greedy, a bully, a welfare bludger, a horrible boss and a voracious influence trafficker? Little wonder we all suffer from the cultural cringe.
“The Spirit of Australia says yes!” he proclaimed. Since when does the Prime Minister of Australia subjugate his high office to the marketing tagline of a vendor, of a rapacious corporation? His next stop was a Suncorp event, where he told the faithful “Lucky you’re with AAMI.”
The PM’s political antenna is clearly not functioning. How could he possibly believe the Yes campaign might reverse its flagging popular support by aligning with Australia’s most complained about company, with a brand suffering from “new levels of distrust”? How could he think that holding joint campaign stops with Joyce, Australia’s most reviled business leader, is beneficial for the Voice’s prospects?
By our rudimentary grasp of it, the Voice is the pathway, preferred by First Nations leaders, to repairing entrenched Aboriginal disadvantage. And Albo is barnstorming with Alan Joyce, who earned $24 million last year and just sold another $17 million of Qantas shares to buy his neighbour’s apartment. Knocking out the wall between his penthouse and the penthouse next door – that’s Alan’s idea of closing the gap. As if mug punters identify with this guy or his values. You’d be forgiven for wondering if Albo is trying to lose his referendum.
Best of all, Albanese and Joyce invited a battalion of journalists but then refused to take a single question. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re here to pull the dust covers off our flying corflutes and to say some things that don’t make sense. Then we’re all moving on, thanks very much. Here’s my stunt on the biggest political issue of the day. The end. Show’s over.”
Since when has that been a thing in Australia? Does Albanese think he’s Narendra Modi? It’s incredibly poor form and everyone can see what’s going on here. The Prime Minister is running away from having to explain the propriety of his conduct in relation to Qantas.
He won’t take questions because some of them might be, “Why did you hit up Alan Joyce for a Chairman’s Lounge membership for your adult son? How many free upgrades has he received? Why haven’t you declared this?”
Equally, Joyce will not want to clarify the commerciality, as he sees it, of his arrangement with the Albanese family – or indeed with all parliamentarians. Incidentally, someone should ask Joyce how many Indigenous Australians he’s invited to join the Chairman’s Lounge. Not very many is a safe bet.
Beholden to Joyce
The problem with Albanese’s covert Chairman’s Lounge gratuity is that he is now beholden to Joyce. He needs Joyce to protect him and not admit that in fact the PM solicited a gift. Therefore, Alan Joyce now has the Prime Minister of this country over a barrel. That’s how even the smallest favours can trap you.Remember, the great Mick Young, a hero of the post-war ALP, resigned from Bob Hawke’s ministry over an undeclared teddy bear. Were Young alive today, what would he think of Albanese’s grasping ways?
It’s a serious lapse of judgment – especially from someone who apparently cannot restrain himself from intervening in aviation policy in a manner so clearly detrimental to the economic interests of ordinary Australians.
At face value, the decision of the Albanese government to refuse Qatar Airways’ bid to operate 28 new flights per week to Australia is a disgraceful one. Albo is smiling and nodding along to Catherine King’s comical, mutating justifications for it. Her decision was really his decision, and the only beneficiary is Qantas.
The entire travel sector, airports, wall-to-wall state Labor governments and even his own Trade Minister can barely believe it. Albanese is preventing 150,000 additional foreign tourists from arriving in Australia each year. They catch Ubers, drink coffee and buy clothes. They are customers of businesses who overwhelmingly employ low-paid workers.
Albo should talk to the struggling housekeeper at the Mantra in Brisbane who misses out on extra shifts as a result of his Qatari fatwa. She just wants to get her bad teeth fixed and buy her granddaughter a Christmas present. Could the PM explain to her why her job is less important to him than Alan Joyce’s?
This is where Albanese misunderstands the politics of this issue badly. These cleaners, those shop assistants, they’re Labor’s constituency, not fabulously rich Qantas executives. People getting off welfare into casual work – some of them might even be Aboriginal. They are the battlers enduring a cost-of-living crisis. They are the single mums so central to Albo’s heroic personal origin myth. And they’re the ones most harmed by his venal decision.
That’s the realpolitik here, but Albanese seems to have no grasp of it. His self-declared priorities are fighting inflation (which would include democratising airfares) while lifting wages for working people, but he is so totally captured. He’s lived at Kirribilli House a mere 15 months. Maybe long ago he saw a light on the hill. Now he only sees the mastlights on superyachts as they pass by.
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