Albanese’s growing reputation as the ‘freebie’ prime minister

Hype around Joe Aston’s book on Qantas, titled The Chairman’s Lounge, had been building in Canberra for months.

By the time it was published this week, it was widely known in political circles that there were several sections of the book that would cause significant difficulty for Anthony Albanese.

People close to former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce had also personally briefed the Prime Minister’s Office on what they had been hearing, warning Albanese’s staff to be ready with a counterattack.

None of that should have come as a surprise to Albanese or his staff.

Tensions between Aston and the prime minister have simmered since the former Australian Financial Review columnist wrote an item last year reporting that Albanese’s son, Nathan, had been granted membership to Qantas’s exclusive Chairman’s Lounge.

That story, coming soon after Transport Minister Catherine King blocked an application from Qatar Airways to add more international flights to Australian routes, dogged Albanese for weeks. It infuriated some members of his front bench, too, who couldn’t understand why the prime minister was digging in on an issue that amplified perceptions of undeserved privilege.

When the first extracts from Aston’s book hit the newsstands last weekend, alleging that Albanese liaised with Joyce directly about personal travel between 2009 and 2022, including 22 free Qantas upgrades for Albanese and one upgrade for family, both Albanese and his office appeared flat-footed.

To be fair to Albanese, the day the story broke he was attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa. At a doorstop press conference in the capital, Apia, last Saturday, Albanese wasn’t even asked about the allegations.

The next day, Albanese attended the Norton Street Italian Festa in his Sydney electorate of Grayndler, where he was asked about his relationship with Joyce and Qantas.

“Every single thing has been declared,” Albanese said of his flight upgrades granted over a 13-year period.

On the question of his son’s Chairman’s Lounge membership, Albanese explained that, after he announced his separation from his then wife Carmel Tebbutt in January 2019, he transferred to his son the “plus one” he was entitled to under his membership.

“And I think that people’s families shouldn’t be the subject of targeting,” the prime minister said. “That is all that happened, simple as that.”

This was the first time Albanese had directly confirmed his son’s membership of the exclusive Chairman’s Lounge. The answer generated further problems for the prime minister, with news stories on Monday seizing on two new details.

First, Albanese had not declared his son’s membership on his parliamentary declaration of interests, as members of parliament typically do for their spouse or partner. Second, his fiancée, Jodie Haydon, had received a complimentary Chairman’s Lounge membership in October 2022, something that had been declared on Albanese’s declaration of interests.

Things got worse for Albanese on Tuesday when he fronted the media in Newcastle, where he lashed out at Aston personally.

“I’ve declared everything,” Albanese said. “I just make this point, and I just make the point as well, that the person who is trying to sell a book, and fair enough – I don’t see declarations that he’s a former Liberal Party staffer for a number of senior members of the Liberal Party, including Joe Hockey and Bruce Baird. I don’t see declarations that he’s a former Qantas employee.”

The problem for Albanese is that Aston did make those declarations, in the first line of his book’s first page. Aston also disclosed that, as a journalist, he had received many flight upgrades himself from a number of domestic and international carriers, including Qantas, and that while he wasn’t a member of the Chairman’s Lounge, he was a member of Virgin Australia’s invitation-only Beyond Lounge.

“He knows he fucked up,” conceded one Albanese confidante. “What pisses him off more is that he missed the chance to land the blow on Aston, who is not only wrong on the detail but fair game when it comes to his motivations.”

“This is classic Albanese,” said a former Labor staffer who has known Albanese since he was first elected to parliament in 1996. “Terrible on the detail. Who ratted on who in the Marrickville South ALP sub-branch elections in the early 1990s? No problem, he can recall every vote. But under pressure and out in front of the cameras? Far too often you see him trip himself up.”

Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy, a key Albanese ally and one of the government’s strongest performers, said it better on Wednesday when he was asked about Albanese’s relationship with Qantas.

“This broader debate, I find interesting for a couple of reasons. First off, these are claims made by a former Liberal staffer who, as recently as three months ago, was the headline act at a federal Liberal fundraiser,” Conroy said. “Until we reminded people of that, very little of the reporting acknowledged that the person in question was a Liberal Party identity. I think that’s a really important point to make.”

That wasn’t enough to shut down the question of whether or not Albanese had liaised directly with Joyce over the flight upgrades, which continued to fester until late on Wednesday when the prime minister’s spokeswoman told media outlets “the prime minister did not ever call Alan Joyce seeking an upgrade”.

Even that didn’t kill the issue, with the statement appearing to leave open the possibility that Albanese may have liaised with Joyce via some other means.

Soon after, Albanese’s office issued a further clarification, categorically denying Albanese had liaised with Joyce over the flight upgrades. Sydney radio presenter Ben Fordham read out further denials from Albanese on 2GB, in which Albanese answered “no” to whether he had ever texted or emailed Joyce or any other executive about flight upgrades. Albanese also categorically denied sharing details of any flights or travel plans with Joyce.

“Over 30 years, there could have been a mistake, but we’ve gone through the records and there are none,” Albanese said. “Why would you call the CEO of Qantas to discuss your flights anyway? I haven’t spoken to Alan in a very long time.”

According to a report in The Age, Albanese moved to calm his frontbench colleagues about the flights upgrade saga in a meeting of his entire ministry on Wednesday evening, insisting he had his house in order and was the victim of an unfair media campaign.

“I accept the second part,” said one Labor frontbencher. “The first part I think is more on him, because he should have gone through his records weeks ago and have been ready with all this the day the allegations were published, or even days before. Instead, we’ve lost another week.”

A Labor backbencher expressed concern over Albanese’s handling of the issue.

“I think most people by now know that he can be very stubborn, and very hard to advise, on issues that touch on aspects of his personal life,” the Labor MP said. “He just thinks he knows best, especially when it comes to media strategy. The problem is that issues like this cut through, and the perception is growing that this is a bloke who can’t say no to a freebie.”

“Albanese’s love for a freebie is becoming a bit of an open secret,” said another Labor insider, with a touch of exasperation. “Whether it’s VIP flights, sports tickets or rubbing shoulders at corporate events, he’s starting to look out of touch with the needs of everyday Australians who are watching every dollar due to rising costs, so he’s got to be careful. Perks come with being prime minister, sure, but too much of it risks making him and us look disconnected from the people we’re meant to be representing.”

Still, as Aston writes in The Chairman’s Lounge, Albanese is hardly Robinson Crusoe in the parliament when it comes to receiving flight upgrades courtesy of Qantas.

Opposition transport spokeswoman Bridget McKenzie, who has led the opposition attack over Albanese’s relationship with Qantas, was forced to issue a statement on Thursday saying she had written to Qantas, Virgin and Regional Express “seeking their assistance to provide me with a full history of upgrades and flights I may have been in receipt of”.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was also forced to concede on Thursday that his office asked mining billionaire Gina Rinehart for use of her private plane to fly from Queensland to Sydney and back for a Bali Bombing memorial service in 2022.

“I couldn’t get a commercial flight together in time,” Dutton said, accusing the government of playing games by not making a taxpayer-funded VIP jet available. “And Gina Rinehart’s plane was available free of cost to the taxpayer.”

Recently released data from the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority shows Dutton charged taxpayers a total of $224,700 for the use of VIP planes between February and August last year.

“The Liberals have been holding themselves out to be pretty pure and pretty holier-than-thou, but then it turns out they’ve got problems,” said Government Services Minister Bill Shorten.

“The opposition’s sort of made a meal of this. They’ve held themselves up to be saintly and they’re not. And I think they’re in danger of overreaching. And maybe they might even shoot themselves in the foot. There’s been a book written. Everyone got excited about that. Or at least Mr Albanese’s enemies did. He’s cleared it up. We want to get on with talking about the cost of living.”

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Comment

Lounge access

There is perhaps no more perfect an illustration of the crudeness of Australian public life, the saucepan on one’s head stupidity, than the fact the commissioner of the country’s leading anti-corruption body is a member of the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge.