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The author of the book that sparked a furore over Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Qantas flight upgrades says Albanese adopted “shoot the messenger tactics” by personally attacking him.
Former Australian Financial Review columnist Joe Aston published The Chairman’s Lounge this week, which included revelations that the prime minister directly contacted former Qantas chief Alan Joyce to solicit flight upgrades when he was transport minister.
In a tense press conference on Tuesday, Albanese accused Aston of not disclosing that he is a former employee of Qantas, a former Liberal party staffer, and attended a Liberal Party fundraiser as recently as June. Responding on social media yesterday, Aston noted that the opening sentence of his book mentions his former staffer role.
Aston joined Sydney’s 2GB radio, calling the attack a “classic shoot the messenger tactic”.
“I was pretty staggered that he would say that I … kept it a secret that I worked for Qantas or that, you know, almost 20 years ago, I’d been a Liberal staffer. It was right on the first page of the book.”
Aston quipped that you would think one of Albanese’s 50 personal staff would have thought to “run their eyes over the book” before launching the attack.
“Not his best day,” Aston concluded.
Aston stood by his reporting that the PM directly dealt with Alan Joyce to secure upgrades for personal flights:
Everyone mustn’t forget, is that only Alan Joyce had the authority at Qantas to issue confirmed upgrades. That’s, you know, where your economy ticket is that it becomes a definite business or first class seat, this isn’t where you go to the airport … and really hope that someone doesn’t turn up and that there’s an empty seat when the flight closes, and therefore you get an upgrade. This is where you go to the airport, and, you know, you’re already upgraded. No one else at Qantas has the power to do that only Alan Joyce”
As for Albanese’s failure to directly respond to this allegation, Aston said that he was “still dancing around the core issue”.
“That’s for him to explain, I suppose, but he’s failing to do so, and I think we all know why.”