Australian Prime Minister fails to stop Qantas upgrade scandal

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his key political aides have spent much of the past week repeatedly and unsuccessfully trying to bury allegations that he received several free upgrades from former Qantas chief Alan Joyce on personal flights, both domestic and international. .

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with his partner Jody Haydon (left) and then Qantas chief Alan Joyce (right), 31 March 2023. (Photo: Facebook/AlboMP)

Allegedly, the scandal was provoked by the release Chairman’s Living Roomex’s book Australian Financial Review columnist Joe Aston. It said Albanese’s parliamentary register of interests announced the upgrades of approximately 20 personal Qantas flights between 2009 and 2019 while he held various positions including transport minister, shadow transport minister and official leader of the opposition.

Some flights were advertised as “personally financed” or to destinations such as Rome, London, Los Angeles and Honolulu. “According to Qantas insiders, Albanese has been in direct contact with Joyce regarding his personal travel arrangements,” Aston said.

Revelations that politicians, including Albanians, receive benefits and privileges from the ruling class are hardly new. These events are more than ten years old. Moreover, members of the political establishment have long lived in a world completely different from ordinary people, especially members of the working class.

In 2021, for example, it was revealed that since 2009 Albanese had received free tickets to seven Australian rules football grand finals, seven years at the Australian Open tennis championships, four National Rugby League grand finals, two Melbourne Cup horse racing and seven international cricket matches. He was also given free entry to 23 concerts by the likes of U2, Prince and Adele, as well as opera and theater events.

In April-May 2023, as the WSWS explained, Albanese openly defended his seven-hour participation in the $1 million wedding of Sydney radio “king” Kyle Sandilands, a right-wing shock jock, against the backdrop of rising cost of living, housing construction. and a social crisis for millions of working class families.

These were not deviations. In February this year, Albanese attended a private party hosted by billionaire Richard Pratt, where Katy Perry performed, immediately after buying expensive tickets to a Taylor Swift concert.

And Albanese is not alone. At least 90 percent of federal parliamentarians are members specially invited by the company’s CEO, Qantas Chair’s Lounge, which Joyce reportedly once called “the most exclusive club in the country.” This gives them priority upgrades and luxury amenities at the airport, away from the public. They include Liberal National Party leader Peter Dutton and Greens leader Adam Bandt.

Virgin’s similar lounge, known as Beyond, also provides politicians and other influential figures with a private club at airports, often offering showers, good food and comfortable accommodations.

These are just small pieces of corporate largesse enjoyed by capitalist politicians, top government officials and corporate executives.

(All federal parliamentary politicians also have access to taxpayer-funded travel, including airfare, for their parliamentary and political business. This includes flying to and from Canberra for several weeks, around their constituents on local business, or across the country to attend in assemblies and perform ministerial duties).

So why are the Qantas allegations receiving so much attention now, and why has Albanese been unable to bury them? Such scandals, actively fueled by the corporate media, are invariably mechanisms for bringing about political shifts.

Albanese’s failure to drop the charges highlights two interlinked developments in growing popular discredit against the Labor government, which the billionaire class has relied on since May 2022 to quell growing social discontent over worsening living conditions and a collapsing economy. US-sponsored genocide and war.

The first driving force is the widening of the already huge gap between the entire political elite, whose members are mostly millionaires showered with corporate benefits, and the masses of working people experiencing crippling financial and personal stress.

Even those workers and young people who can afford to fly invariably do so in the so-called “cattle class”, mostly on planes operated by budget airline Qantas Jetstar. Qantas is also widely hated for illegally sacking 1,700 workers at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite receiving huge handouts from the government.

The second factor is growing popular hostility towards the Labor government for introducing the biggest decline in working class living standards since the Second World War. The situation is exacerbated by attacks on construction workers through the dictatorial takeover of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Union, and by Labor’s growing support for American militarism, from barbarity in Gaza, Lebanon and throughout the Middle East to war against Russia in Ukraine and the AUKUS Pact planning a war against China.

As media polls show the Labor government trailing the avowedly right-wing Liberal-National coalition ahead of a general election due before May, there are growing signs that the capitalist ruling class is losing confidence in the abilities of Albanese and Labour. continue to implement the program of war and austerity.

This concern has been heightened by heavy defeats suffered by long-standing Labor governments in the Northern Territory and Queensland over the past two months, without any significant shift in the vote in favor of the Liberal National parties. It could herald a widely reviled Liberal National party coming to power at the federal level, which will face intense social unrest and political discontent.

Such is the intimacy between Labor Party politicians and corporate chiefs that it took Albanese and his office six full days before they issued a still unconvincing denial that the Prime Minister had never communicated with the late Qantas chief Joyce about the promotion .

Publicly, Albanese still tries to portray himself as a fighter from a poor family, even though he bought a clifftop home overlooking the ocean for $4.3 million last month. In disturbing words Australian Financial Review, Focus on Albanese’s personal hypocrisy “continues to undermine the government’s efforts to show voters it is solving their pocketbook problems.”

According to this newspaper, many Labor Party influencers “say they have no desire to get rid of Albanese.” He continues to enjoy the loyalty of “big players” both from his “left” faction and from various “right-wing sub-factions”. They do not want any disunity to appear, “especially in the run-up to the elections.”

Still, there is “despair over his leadership,” according to lawmakers who spoke on condition of anonymity so they can speak candidly.

Some speeches against Albanese were broadcast Saturday newspaper Today. An unnamed Labor spokesman commented: “The problem is that issues like this arise and there is a growing perception that this is a guy who can’t say no to a freebie.”

Another “Labour insider” said: “Albanese’s love of freebies is becoming something of an open secret. Whether it’s VIP flights, sporting event tickets or networking at corporate events, he’s starting to look out of touch with the needs of everyday Australians who are watching every dollar because of rising prices, so he needs to be careful.” Such benefits made “us appear disconnected from the people we are supposed to represent.”

Speaking to Sydney TelegraphMurdoch’s tabloid, one of Albanese’s colleagues, put it more bluntly. “He’s legitimized and figured out how to extract every piece of free crap.”

In another sign that the knives may be sharpened against Albanese, comments were leaked from a ministerial meeting on Wednesday in which he reportedly tried to brush off the scandal as a media bashing.

Health Minister Mark Butler came to Albanese’s defense on Friday. Butler told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that ministers had to “take responsibility” and stop leaking information about ministerial meetings. “It’s undisciplined. It makes me angry,” he said.

This is a sign of government collapse.

Having come to power in May 2022 with the support of less than a third of voters, after false promises of a “better future”, the Labor government is desperate to retain the support of the capitalist class as it not only worsens the living conditions of the working class, but also reveals huge military spending and turns Australia into the basis for a catastrophic US-led war against China.

Since 2022, the corporate elite has relied heavily on the Labor Party and its trade union partners to suppress workers’ struggles and prepare the population for war. By using Albanese’s personal privilege as their main target, the corporate media and the Liberal-National Coalition only underlined the absence of any significant differences. There is substantial unity between the country’s two main ruling parties regarding the agenda of militarism and declining living standards.

Both in the United States and throughout the world, a deep, explosive political crisis is developing.

Australian Prime Minister fails to stop Qantas upgrade scandal

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