Recently, it was revealed that Prime Minister Albanese had received at least 22 tens of thousands of dollars worth of Qantas upgrades over the years.
In a recent interview on the issue, Albanese insisted he had never personally requested a Qantas upgrade, but he did not rule out the possibility that his staff had. The Australian government is under pressure to end travel by federal lawmakers and public officials on taxpayer-funded Qantas flights.
Incident still unfolding
The debate over politicians and their airfare benefits has been raging for several days now, and on Monday, Parliament resumed and federal lawmakers returned to Canberra for the session. Albanese is expected to be hounded by the Senate Estimates Committee when he is forced to defend his commitment to transparency, particularly whether his special treatment of a cabin upgrade when he became Transport Minister will affect his decision to reject Qatar Airways’ decision to add routes to and from Australia. After all, Australians benefit in terms of reduced fares if other airlines join in adding routes.
From 2009 to 2013, Albanese was frequently seen on flights in Europe and the United States, where free upgrades from economy to business class brought him significant extra value. As an example, Albanese is a familiar face on the Melbourne-Los Angeles route: his regular business class fare is about A$15,843, while economy is only A$1,458, a price difference of nearly 11 times. The Prime Minister has been criticized for his close relationship with Joyce, the airline’s former president, which may have influenced his decisions on the industry during his time as Transport Minister. However, he emphasized that last year’s call to block Qatar Airways’ request to double the number of its flights in Australia in favor of incumbent suppliers such as Qantas was made by the current Transport Minister, Catherine King. Meanwhile, Albanese said insisted he had never personally asked for a Qantas upgrade and had previously been offered tens of thousands of dollars worth of upgrades by Qantas free of charge and with no strings attached.
Despite the Prime Minister’s insistence that the record is clean, the story is still unfolding. Calls for Qantas to revoke the President’s Lounge membership continued on Monday. Independent Kate Chaney, who represents Curtin in the Western Australian federal electorate, wrote to Qantas on Monday asking for the cancellation of President’s Lounge membership. Fellow federal independent Allegra Spender, who represents the Sydney riding of Wentworth, called on all legislators to say no to the upgrades. Meanwhile, Qantas competitor Virgin has said that more than 90 percent of politicians and their staff choose Qantas flights, which are likely to be more expensive, despite rules that require them to choose cheaper flights. Virgin claims that their preference for Qantas is costing taxpayers tens of millions of extra dollars a year. This begs the question of why politicians choose Qantas. Politicians are accountable to their constituents, and if they accept any gift or form of hospitality from lobbying groups or those with vested interests, they are prone to have a stake in influencing decision-making, which in turn undermines the public’s interest, and thus affects the public’s trust in the government.
Not the Prime Minister’s personal problem
Although the incident was caused by the Prime Minister’s situation being exposed by the media, it is not his personal problem. Qantas has set up “Chairman’s Lounges” at major airports for specially invited guests of the Qantas Chairman, with a variety of high-class lounges, free meals, and business support services, and extended to become a social environment for the privileged to interact with each other, many of whom are business leaders and influential people in the community, and are free of charge to politicians. Many of them are business leaders and influential people in the community, but politicians are invited to attend for free. At present, over 90% of the 227 members of the Australian Parliament are or have been its members, and some of their spouses and children are also invited to become members.
This circle of “power” and “prestige” provides a great means of networking through the fact that everyone needs to fly and can use the Qantas “Chairman’s Lounge” while waiting. This is not the same as the Qantas Club, which is offered by the airline to frequent guests, because the invitations are provided by the airline rather than being open to everyone through set rules. Clearly, this is a private network that is not open to the public, but rather an informal network of the “powerful” and the “wealthy” that has been created by the need for air service.
The most important question is, should the Australian government allow this network? Should Australian politicians join this network?
Transparency is urgently needed
In fact, it is not uncommon for politicians to receive extra treatment. Australian parliamentary guidelines require all elected members to declare gifts worth more than $300, including gifts to family members. It has been revealed that Albanese has accepted more tickets to concerts and sporting events since becoming Prime Minister than his three predecessors combined. Because of his interest in music, Albanese has claimed tickets to ten concerts since his election in 2022. Leader of the Opposition Coalition Dutton’s social calendar is similarly jam-packed, with him receiving 21 passes for sporting events over the same period, from cricket to various National Rugby League NRL matches. Clearly, some councillors are more careful with their declarations than others, with Thornton declaring 99 hotel room upgrades between 2016 and 2019 alone, when he was leader of the opposition Labor Party.
So what about public opinion? In a recent Guardian survey of 1,131 voters, people were asked whether they should accept or reject the fact that ‘many Australian politicians get a lot of special event tickets and perks’. The majority of Australians think politicians should not accept offers or perks, disapproving of politicians attending major concerts (63% vs 23%), receiving free flight upgrades (61% vs 26%), attending major sporting events such as the Melbourne Cup and finals (59% vs 27%) and using VIP airline lounges (58% vs 28%). Around one in seven respondents (14%) were ‘unsure’ whether politicians should receive these. Labour voters were slightly more likely to support accepting gifts from politicians, with around a third (32%) supporting upgraded flights, compared to 27% of Coalition supporters. Independents and small party supporters were particularly opposed, with only 18% agreeing that politicians should upgrade flights.
Moore, chief executive of Transparency International Australia, an Australian anti-corruption organization, also said that while the disclosure of the gifts was a positive step, “there is not enough transparency”. After all, the more fundamental issue is the role of commercial organizations and the close relationship between many large corporations like Qantas and politicians. If this affects government decision-making, it becomes a bigger issue – how this intertwined relationship will affect federal politics in Australia. Openness and transparency are the guarantors of credibility, and when public trust in government plummets, the bedrock of democracy is shaken. Millions of Australians, in particular, are in a very difficult position and expect the political class to show some liberal compassion in this affordability crisis, rather than the ‘extra sting’ of politicians having privileges not available to the public.
Institutional reform is urgent
As servants of the state, politicians enjoy privileges unavailable to ordinary taxpayers, a serious departure from society’s expectations of clean government. Former judge Anthony Wheatley has said that the disclosure system in Australian politics needs to be overhauled to drive big money out of politics. The relationship between the privileged and corporations has become a major obstacle to political transparency in Australia, and the relationship between Albanese and Qantas is a typical case: on the surface, it is a personal privilege storm, but in fact, it reveals a deep-seated transparency crisis in Australian politics. In an era of highly publicized information, it is difficult for any abuse of power to escape public scrutiny. In the face of increasingly stringent public scrutiny, the government needs to realize that the public expects not only verbal promises, but also practical behavioral changes, and furthermore, a profound interrogation and reform of the fairness and transparency of the entire political system, in order to avoid the recurrence of similar situations.
For 3,000 years in China, the emperor has held all the power, and the bureaucracy has governed the society through layers and layers of power distribution. Power corrupts, and this has led to the formation of an extremely powerful system of corruption, and even more frighteningly, corruption has become the culture of the entire society. From the emperor to the common people, everyone accepts that corruption is perfectly acceptable as long as it is not excessive. I still remember the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in Hong Kong in 1974. Apart from investigating corruption cases and bringing the offenders to justice, the ICAC did more than anything else to promote integrity education to adults in the community and students in schools. Of course, many people have criticized the ICAC for not allowing family members of patients to give small red packets to health care workers to thank them for taking good care of their family members, which is considered unsympathetic. It is only after decades of social education that a clean social standard has been established.
If we look at Asian societies, we can see that the collusion between business and the government and the protection of the government in China, and the small state and big plutocrats in Korea, all these have provided negative examples for the Australian political scene. In Korea, for example, the plutocrats have undeniably contributed to the miracle of compressed growth in the Korean economy, and they have risen to prominence through political largesse. As these zaibatsu grew stronger and stronger, they in turn became hostage to politics. Politicians relied on the political and economic resources of the zaibatsu to run for elections, and also relied on the economic growth of the zaibatsu to create political results, and the mutual transfer of benefits and support between politicians and zaibatsu has become the backstage mode of operation of Korea’s constitutional government. As the major plutocrats have been linked to various corruption scandals time and again, the public discontent and controversy caused by the plutocrats’ domination of the country has become more and more intense. On the contrary, Singapore, where “high pay keeps corruption low”, has set a model. After all, the system is more reliable than the people, only through the combination of the system and the leaders, it is possible to fundamentally realize the rule of law and clean government. The authority of Singapore’s “Father of the Nation”, Lee Kuan Yew, was not only to rule the country strictly, but also to rule the government strictly, and even more so to rule the party strictly, and it was an authority based on a set of modern legal system. It is precisely because of this set of institutions that the high pay for honesty and integrity can be effective, and it is only because of this that it can gain the basic recognition of the common people.
The Prime Minister must set an example
Against the backdrop of soaring living costs and increasing economic pressures, Australian voters are desperate for a leader who truly understands their plight, rather than a political elite living in a privileged bubble. In order to rebuild voters’ trust, it is not only necessary for Albanese to give a more transparent explanation of the incident, but also for the political scene as a whole to conduct in-depth reflection and reform. The public expects a more transparent and fairer political environment, where every government decision can stand the test of public scrutiny.
In this regard, Albanese, as the prime minister, has to practise what he preaches, not only by saying that he is clean, but also by letting the society see that he is clean, and by setting a higher standard. The famous phrase “power corrupts” not only indicates that those in power have a tendency to corrupt themselves, but also that those in power are tempted to use their power for their own personal or corporate interests. Therefore, politicians and civil servants at all levels need to be held to a stronger standard of integrity.
When the government provides funding to organizations, it will emphasize that the applicant must not have any conflict of interest, and if possible, must declare it, and it can affect the success of the funding application. Why is it that a Member of this Council is so vocal in insisting that as long as a declaration is made and registered, he can legitimately accept gifts from large corporations? This is clearly a double standard and shows the hypocrisy of the legislators.
It is time for Prime Minister Albanese to make major reforms and educate legislators.