Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, November one. An indigenous activist group, the convinced
Speaker 1: Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to block a million dollar gold
Speaker 1: mine in Blaney, has formed. The Australian is exclusively revealing
Speaker 1: the Wiradjuri Elders group successfully opposed a bathist go kart
Speaker 1: track in twenty nineteen. That story's live right now at
Speaker 1: The Australian dot com Dot you. An upgrade to business
Speaker 1: class has never been this uncomfortable. Anthony Alberinezi is seeking
Speaker 1: to reassure his ministers he's done nothing wrong and is
Speaker 1: the victim of unfair media reporting over allegations he solicited
Speaker 1: Quantus flight upgrades, and now the coalition's transport spokeswoman is
Speaker 1: facing question of her own. That's today's episode. If you've
Speaker 1: ever been in Canberra on a Thursday night as Parliament
Speaker 1: is rising for the week, you'll know you need to
Speaker 1: stand back as politicians stampede to the airport.
Speaker 2: They cannot get out of here fast enough.
Speaker 1: Rosie Lewis is The Australian's political correspondent, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about a story that's blown up in the face of
Speaker 1: Labor and to a lesser extent, the Coalition in recent days.
Speaker 1: It's about politician's cozy relationship with Quantus and it's turning
Speaker 1: into one of those political scandals where you never know
Speaker 1: who's going to have their ankles bitten next.
Speaker 2: The fallout from there has been extremely messy for the
Speaker 2: Prime Minister and we still what is it five six
Speaker 2: days in, have unanswered questions. More questions continue emerging.
Speaker 1: It started on Saturday when extracts were published of a
Speaker 1: new book by Joe Aston, a former columnist with nine
Speaker 1: Entertainment in his book. Aston, who's a former staffer for
Speaker 1: PM John Howard and Treasury Joe Hockey, and he also
Speaker 1: worked at Countus in the early days of his career
Speaker 1: before becoming a journalist. He's alleged Anthony Albanezi has received
Speaker 1: free upgrades from Quantus on domestic and international flights booked
Speaker 1: not for work, but for himself and his family on
Speaker 1: private travel.
Speaker 2: The Prime Minister then held a press conference on Sunday.
Speaker 3: From time to time, members of Parliament receive upgrades. What's
Speaker 3: important is that they are declared. All of mine have
Speaker 3: been declared.
Speaker 2: That in my view, answered very few questions. When the
Speaker 2: coverage continued and really only ramped up from there. The
Speaker 2: Prime Minister, i think, tried to nip it in the
Speaker 2: bud on Tuesday, but again made the problem worse with
Speaker 2: a very confused press conference.
Speaker 1: Did you call Alan Joyce personally for these upgrades?
Speaker 3: Look, the idea quannas have a number in terms of
Speaker 3: bookings that are my private bookings.
Speaker 2: It was genuinely hard to understand what he was trying
Speaker 2: to say as to when he had or hadn't spoken
Speaker 2: to Alan Joyce, whether he had in fact solicited these
Speaker 2: flight upgrades for personal travel, particularly personal overseas travel with
Speaker 2: family members. That's at the heart of the sort of
Speaker 2: bad look for al Ben Easy. Obviously, at some point,
Speaker 2: maybe early on or maybe later, he and his office
Speaker 2: realized that they needed to do a much better job
Speaker 2: than they had done in clarifying exactly what had gone on.
Speaker 2: So they were going back through his records, flight records
Speaker 2: over nearly thirty years of his parliamentary career in the background,
Speaker 2: and we then got a fairly late statement just before
Speaker 2: six o'clock on Wednesday night. It was just a couple
Speaker 2: of lines on record and the key being that he
Speaker 2: had never called Alan Joyce. What we didn't get was
Speaker 2: clarification as to whether he had spoken with Alan Joyce
Speaker 2: in any other way ie text or email. What we
Speaker 2: didn't get was clarification whether his office had spoken to
Speaker 2: anyone at Quantas or the Prime Minister had spoken to
Speaker 2: anyone at Quantus. So there was then more clarifying background
Speaker 2: on Thursday morning from his office saying there had been
Speaker 2: no other communication with Alan Joyce, And we know that
Speaker 2: the Prime Minister spoke with two GB's Ben Fordham on
Speaker 2: Wednesday night, ruling out a heap of things that he
Speaker 2: himself had not spoken to Joyce or anyone else at
Speaker 2: Quantas asking for an upgrade.
Speaker 4: The question was asked, did you ever text Alan Joyce
Speaker 4: about flight upgrades? The PM's answer no. Did you ever
Speaker 4: email Alan Joyce about flight upgrades? The PM's answer again no.
Speaker 2: The outstanding question now is did anyone in his office
Speaker 2: do this? Did anyone in his office ring a particular
Speaker 2: person or a particular phone number, and in doing so
Speaker 2: were they effectively guaranteed an upgrade? The background I received
Speaker 2: on Wednesday was that many different staff members, as you'd expect,
Speaker 2: booked the Prime Minister's travel over his many years in
Speaker 2: Parliament through the normal channels and upgrades were given in
Speaker 2: the usual way to all politicians.
Speaker 1: So why does it matter, Well, because Albanezie was the
Speaker 1: Minister for Transport in Labour's former government, Danny was Opposition
Speaker 1: transport spokesman, and Quantus is one of the country most
Speaker 1: powerful businesses. It's a huge provider of travel to government employees,
Speaker 1: including bureaucrats and politicians, and government has a critical role
Speaker 1: in regulating Quantas and the aviation market, including any potential competitors.
Speaker 5: The Transport Minister says the treatment of Australian women who
Speaker 5: are subjected to invasive body searches at Doha Airport was
Speaker 5: a factor in her decision to block extra cutter Airways
Speaker 5: flights into the country. Catherine King says it was just
Speaker 5: one factor but won't say what the others were, denying
Speaker 5: accusations that it was Quantus that influenced her decision.
Speaker 1: And it's a tough corporate player, embroiled in workplace dramas
Speaker 1: like other big businesses. Free Form Aquantus workers who were
Speaker 1: sacked during the pandemic have had a big win in
Speaker 1: the Federal court. It's possible. I suppose rosy that Quantus
Speaker 1: has a system that flags when a VIP books a
Speaker 1: flight and automatically upgrades them, or just make sure that
Speaker 1: that is sorted out. If that turns out to be
Speaker 1: the case, is that the end of it? Or is
Speaker 1: that also problematic?
Speaker 3: Do you think?
Speaker 2: I think it's much less problematic. But the problem for
Speaker 2: the Prime Minister is the damage to an extent has
Speaker 2: already been done. The government has been completely off message
Speaker 2: and completely distracted by something that should have and could
Speaker 2: have been dealt with on Day Dot.
Speaker 1: Coming up, how the coalition's lead attacker got drawn into
Speaker 1: the drama. Bridget McKenzie is a very colorful figure in
Speaker 1: the opposition. She's been from and center leading the attack
Speaker 1: on Anthony Albanezi. Now, if he wants to clear his name,
Speaker 1: if he thinks he's got nothing to hide, then get
Speaker 1: out here and tell us the truth. Get it on
Speaker 1: the record, refer yourself to the Knack. And now she's
Speaker 1: had to admit that she herself is trying to find
Speaker 1: out whether she has ever received upgrades that she's failed
Speaker 1: to declare on the Register of members' interests. How did
Speaker 1: that go so wrong?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the PM needed to get his house in order
Speaker 2: on Saturday. Bridget McKenzie needed to get her house in
Speaker 2: order on Monday before she came out and demanded that
Speaker 2: mister Albanezi release a full log of his flights. She
Speaker 2: came out and said she had never asked or received
Speaker 2: a flight upgrade, full stop, and within hours I believe
Speaker 2: she had to correct the record because her register showed that,
Speaker 2: in fact, she did receive an upgrade in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: a couple of days later, and it's now turned out
Speaker 2: she's facing questions as to whether she received more upgrades
Speaker 2: and didn't disclose them properly, which can be sort of
Speaker 2: in breach or in contempt of the Senate. Given that
Speaker 2: Bridget McKenzie and Peter Dutton are leading the attack against
Speaker 2: the Prime Minister, and given Bridget mackenzie has had to
Speaker 2: resign as a minister in the past over the sports
Speaker 2: forts saga, you would have thought she would have been
Speaker 2: one hundred percent certain in her own affairs before coming
Speaker 2: out in attack of the Prime Minister.
Speaker 1: Does this whole story just speak to a culture that's
Speaker 1: saturated in receiving upgrades and effectively gifts from airlines.
Speaker 2: I think it does. We do have codes of conduct
Speaker 2: for MPs, for ministers that are very clear about not
Speaker 2: accepting gifts sort of personal gain that could be in
Speaker 2: conflict with your work. But this is something that has
Speaker 2: become so widespread, not just among politicians, also among the
Speaker 2: people who work for them and other high ranking Australians.
Speaker 2: But when you zoom out and look at it from
Speaker 2: the eye of the punter, it doesn't quite feel right
Speaker 2: or past the pub test, especially if you're soliciting something
Speaker 2: which we know now the Prime Minister saying he personally
Speaker 2: did not.
Speaker 1: Okay and Rosie, what are the stakes here? Just finally,
Speaker 1: if Anthony Alberonezi turns out to have made a mistake
Speaker 1: and forgotten that in fact he or someone who works
Speaker 1: for him did solicit an upgrade, or if Bridget mackenzie
Speaker 1: discovers that yes, she also solicited upgrades and received them
Speaker 1: and failed to disclose them, what happens to each of
Speaker 1: those people was the most likely scenario.
Speaker 2: I think this point. If it turns out that Bridget
Speaker 2: McKenzie did receive upgrades, I don't think at this point
Speaker 2: there's a suggestion she solicited them. That if she received
Speaker 2: them and didn't disclose them, that does seem to be
Speaker 2: a bad look. There are colleagues in our Canberra Bureau
Speaker 2: who think she will have to go as Opposition Transport
Speaker 2: spokeswoman if that turns out to be true. Peter Dutton
Speaker 2: is standing by her at this stage that she hasn't
Speaker 2: received her audit back yet, so let's wait and see.
Speaker 2: But worst case scenario for Bridget Mackenzie she has to
Speaker 2: step down from the front bench again Ivans and the
Speaker 2: Albanezi turns out to have had his office solicit an upgrade.
Speaker 2: He'll have to apologize for that, and he'll have to
Speaker 2: answer endless questions from the Coalition as to whether that
Speaker 2: raised a conflict. At this stage, though his cabinet standing
Speaker 2: beside him, there's no leadership rumblings. So I think at
Speaker 2: this point, worst case scenario for the Prime Minister is
Speaker 2: lost weeks of parliament, lost, weeks of having any sort
Speaker 2: of coherent message to the public in the lead up
Speaker 2: to an election, but probably no scalp there. Bridget Mackenzie
Speaker 2: would be the more likely scalp at this stage, pending
Speaker 2: the outcome of her ordit.
Speaker 1: Rosie Lewis is the Australian's political correspondent. If there are
Speaker 1: any scalps. Our subscribers at The Australian will be the
Speaker 1: first to know. Join us at the Australian dot com
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Speaker 1: business class flight from Sydney to Melbourne, and we don't
Speaker 1: have engineering issues, unexplained delays or warm chardonnay. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us on the front. Our team is Kristin Amiot,
Speaker 1: Jasper leik Lea Semaglu, Joshua Burton and Tiffany Demac.