OPINION
Groucho Marx famously didn’t want to belong to any club that would have him as a member. For Australia’s political elites, it’s more a case of desperately wanting the perks of a club they publicly profess to loathe.
Forget the Melbourne Club, the Atheneum, or the Tattersall’s Club: one of the most exclusive clubs in Australia is the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge. So exclusive, in fact, that its existence has only recently been openly acknowledged on the airline’s website. You can’t get into the Chairman’s Lounge, you have to be let in: membership is strictly hand-picked by the airline’s chairman — until very recently, Alan Joyce.
As it turns out, some of Joyce and Qantas’ most vocal critics are all too happy to lap up the perks of Chairman’s Lounge membership.
All three current MPs appearing on Monday’s episode of Q+A admitted to maintaining exclusive Qantas chairman lounge memberships despite criticising the airline for alleged misconduct.
Only moments after stating he was ‘trying not to’ fly with Qantas as a ‘statement’ against the airline’s practices, National MP Kevin Hogan revealed he still held a the exclusive membership with the airline.
He’s far from the only political pig with its snout in the trough.
Q+A host Patricia Karvelas asked which of the politicians on the panel, including Agriculture Minister Murray Watt and independent Member Kylea Tink, held a membership.
All three politicians promptly raised their hands. As did former NSW Premier and High Commissioner to India Barry O’Farrell […]
The revelation came moments after Mr Watt called for increased transparency from the airline.
The Labor Agriculture Minister also criticised Qantas for outsourcing many of its functions, cutting wages and bringing in labour hire.
Tinky the Teal tried to hand-wave away her hypocrisy, but to her credit, host Karvelas wasn’t buying it.
‘A free drink and some stale peanuts will not stop me from calling them out when the behaviour is wrong,’ Ms Tink said.
‘There’s good stuff there, it’s better than stale peanuts,’ Karvelas shot back.
The Daily Mail
Indeed, there is.
The invitation-only Chairman’s Lounge is so exclusive that Qantas only recently acknowledged its very existence on its website.
There are six of them at airports in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra, discretely hidden away from the travelling public.
Members enjoy plush leather sofas, food from a buffet or a la carte menu, a complementary bar that is always open and, above all, peace and quiet.
The Daily Mail
Yet, the same political elites who are only too happy to bask in the luxury of its invitation-only Club have been opportunistically bashing Qantas for weeks. Not that the airline doesn’t deserve it, mind.
This comes less than two weeks after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced action in the Federal Court of Australia against Qantas for allegedly engaging in false, misleading or deceptive conduct.
It is alleged the airline advertised more than 8000 flights scheduled to depart between May and July 2022 that it had already cancelled […] the refusal to pay $2.5billion in government subsidies and a poor-showing by then-chief executive Alan Joyce at a Senate hearing added to the airline’s woes
The Qantas chief executive then announced his immediate resignation on September 5 after a fortnight of anger at the national carrier, bringing forward his retirement by two months.
The Daily Mail
The hypocrisy doesn’t end there, though. PM Anthony Albanese, whose government is accused of running a protection racket for the airline, has a nepotistic little line straight to the Chairman’s Lounge.
Serious questions have been raised about why Anthony Albanese’s 22-year-old son has been granted access to Qantas’ exclusive Chairman’s Lounge.
Nathan Albanese – the ony son of the Prime Minister and his ex-wife Carmel Tebbutt – was recently spotted in one of the national airline’s guest rooms.
Membership of the Chairman’s Lounge is typically reserved for celebrities, business executives and big name politicians.
So, what has young Nate done to merit a membership? Besides have a dad who can grease the skids for an airline caught up in dodgy business practices, that is?
The revelation – first reported by the Australian Financial Review columnist Joe Aston – sparked anger on talkback radio on Thursday morning, and prompted a series of questions which are yet to be answered by the PM or Qantas.
Those include why access was given by Qantas, why Mr Albanese has not declared the hospitality given to his son in an official register of interests, or whether the lounge pass may have been granted for security reasons.
‘It’s something that should be disclosed,’ Mr Aston told Sydney’s 2GB Radio host Ben Fordham this morning.
‘The only reason that the gift is offered and accepted is because he’s the son of the prime minister and the prime minister is a public official who, with his cabinet members, is supposed to regulate the airline in an effective way.’
The Daily Mail
Supposed to… but there’s an awful lot our politicians seem prepared to turn a blind eye to, in return for free drinkies, gourmet food and a comfy chair.