What favour would you like for my Chairman's Lounge membership Alan?

It's been rather unedifying to watch Alan Joyce, Catherine King, Anthony Albanese and more recently Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones defend the protection of Qantas from competition and the rarified couches of the Qantas Chairman's Lounge.

What they both smack of is the corporate capture of government and just how it works. As I've written about before in relation to the PwC scandal (and the accounting firms more broadly) corporate capture of government is not in anyone's interest.

Protecting Qantas' profit

How does protecting the profit of Qantas (and pay packet of Alan Joyce) stack up as being in 'the national interest'?

Joyce is the guy who has sacked 5,000 workers, is using New Zealanders (for the Auckland - New York Service) as their rest entitlements aren't as onerous as Australian cabin crew, and has 'wet leased' two planes (planes + crew) from Finnair for four years.

News altert: Qantas was privatised back in 1995.

If this government is really serious about its newly announced competition policy launched by Jim Chalmers on Wednesday last week, surely 'protecting Qantas' is the anthesis of this.

As Joe Ashton so eloquently notes Alan Joyce's statement that Qantas was '11 weeks from bankruptcy,' "is another raging falsehood. When COVID-19 hit in March 2020, Qantas had almost $2 billion in cash and $5 billion in unencumbered assets it could borrow against. The capital markets were open, so Joyce could issue equity or raise debt (he did both, as well as begging money off the government). The idea that Qantas was ever facing liquidation is sheer make-believe."

And Qantas is sitting on around half a billion dollars of customers money in flight credits (interest free that is for now almost three years), and there's only four months left to redeem these credits, IF you can find a redeemable flight or get on to their call centre. A class action seems the only way to hold Joyce accountable.

The Chairman's Lounge

Watching Alan Joyce's interview with Sarah Fergusson last week was a masterclass in ego and obfuscation by Joyce. He wasn't able to talk about details of the Prime Minister's son membership of the Chairman's Lounge due to privacy reasons. Cute but doesn't pass the pub test.

What other reason would Qantas have to grant membership of this lounge to a 24-year old? Oh, I know, to secure favourable treatment on potential competition. And to bolster the 'you owe us' favourable treatment we'll paint our planes with YES23 logos and provide a photo op.

Here's an idea for the Chairman's Lounge.

Charge for it . . . whatever you like: a joining fee and then yearly membership. That way the parliamentary register of gifts can be updated and we can all 'see' just how much Qantas 'gifts' politicians (and others) and make an assessment of what this means in terms of the influence over decisions our elected representatives are under.

The fact that it's so secret/private/confidential shows just how important it is for Qantas in setting up an expectation of return favours when called upon.

Ethics and transparency

Many Australians voted for the Labor Party or independents in the last election as they were sick and tired of the unethical abuse of power, pork barrelling, rorts and lack of transparency of the previous government.

It appears that we're heading in the same direction with the current government with the Qantas verbal gymnastics by various Ministers just the latest example.

This is hugely disappointing if not unsurprising.

To paraphrase Lord Chief Justice Hewart's dictum that 'justice must be seen to be done', democracy and our elected members must not only behave ethically and transparently, they must be seen to be acting ethically for our democratic system to have a real chance of working.

It's not like there aren't other options for our MPs. Qantas Club Lounges, Business Class Lounges – both are offered on upfront commercial terms, both offer the iconic Qantas muesli, half decent coffee and, mostly, a place to sit and work/read. Gosh, our MPs might even meet some more of the very business people and constituents that could give them feedback.

I have a plane to catch

Alan Joyce's disdain for the Senate inquiry process was there for all to see, when he became agitated as he had to leave to catch a flight. Really. Could he not have changed to a later flight, or perhaps he could have 'endured a forced layover' as many of his customers (including me) have had to because of cancelled flights? He could have hired a car and returned to Sydney that way . . . something I've had to do as well.

Corporate capture of government

Chairman's Lounge couches aside, what the current Qantas decisions and behaviour of Alan Joyce and the Qantas board show, along with the PwC scandal, is that the corporate capture of government is insidious and requires constant vigilance - both from independent institutions and an independent media.

What are your thoughts?

Have you been able to redeem your Qantas flight credits?

Are you voting with your feet and choosing not to fly with Qantas?

Disclosure: I am a paid member of both Qantas and Virgin Lounges and have experienced the Chairman's Lounge amenity from time-to-time. The museli in both is pretty good.

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