The recent political kerfuffle over politicians getting free upgrades on Qantas flights misses the point somewhat, I think. It is the corrupt and odious practices of Qantas management which should be called out rather than merely berating the politicians, in my view. Qantas upgrade palm greasing of politicians. Alan Joyce was one of, if not, the most ruthless CEOs in Australian corporate history. This chief executive of our defacto national carrier for more than a decade, instigated repeated purges of the Qantas workforce. These were undertaken whilst simultaneously currying favour with the political movers and shakers by making them and their families feel special in the air and within the infamous Qantas Chairman’s lounge. Old fashioned graft and palm greasing really.
“Qantas employees have been expressly warned over potential “bribery” risks and reputational damage when offering “gifts” to Australian politicians worth more than $200 in a new all-staff training module.
News.com.au has confirmed that the training was rolled out by the airline on Monday and it urges employees to run any “gifts” to public officials and politicians past Qantas’ legal department.”
- (Samantha Maiden, 5 November 2024)
Joyce & Qantas Graft Merchants For Political Power
It is the elite looking after their own while the workers cop it in the neck. The mass sackings of Qantas workers happened repeatedly over the 15 years the diminutive Irishman stood tall in Australian aviation. We now know why little was ever said by politicians, even on the Labor side, as they were too busy taking backhanders in the form of pampered treatment aboard the Qantas juggernaut. Human beings are simple social animals at heart and few are immune from deferential behaviour, especially in the rarified atmosphere way up there and at the airport.
Aussie Politicians Trade Their Integrity For Qantas Upgrades
Yes, the politicians should have resisted it if they were sticklers for integrity but few are in reality. I would like to see corporations prosecuted for this kind of thing – graft and bribery. The media is focusing on the tit for tat political spats, as they always do – with the ABC being the worst offender. It is the private sector initiating this kind of thing and seemingly getting away with it scot-free. A ‘scot’ was an arcane term for a tax. This is a good segway to the fact that some 42% of corporations doing business in Australia paid no corporate tax at all in the most recent financial year. This is a growing number every year of tax avoiders. What is the government doing about this since the infamous PwC betrayal under the LNP Coalition federal governments of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison? We, the people, have heard little about this since it broke news several years ago.
National Corruption Watchdog Rolling Over & Playing Dead
The NACC or the SNACC, as some pundits call it because it is so secret that nobody ever hears about it, has been a total failure and embarrassment. It reaffirms the mutual complicities of both main political parties in avoiding accountability at the federal level. We have just seen the conflict of interest at play between the head of the NACC and senior bureaucrat Kathryn Campbell, who has been under investigation for her major role in the Robodebt illegal scandal. Both are active old fellows of Sydney University involved in shared pursuits pertaining to that organisation.
“The decision by the National Anti-Corruption Commission not to investigate the six public servants over the Robodebt scandal appears to have been “infected by the bias of Commissioner Justice Paul Brereton and, if so, should now be disregarded”, says Stephen Charles AO KC, a former judge at the Victorian Court of Appeal and a former board member of the Centre of Public Integrity.”
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
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