What a cosy club Australian business is. Today the Nine Network donated an entire page in its dying organs, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, to Alan Joyce’s Qantas to solicit public support for the reopening of borders — because “Australians love to travel” and we “want to be reunited with loved ones”.
The rapport between the two is understandable. Nine, of course, is chaired by Peter Costello, whose political career was started with an attack on workers in the Dollar Sweets case and finished by another attack, WorkChoices. Alan Joyce is famous for his attacks on Qantas workers, including grounding his entire fleet in 2011.
But is Costello backing Joyce calling for an end to the federal government’s border restrictions? Wouldn’t that be a tad embarrassing for the government?
Have no fear, Qantas only wants domestic borders reopened. Nary a word about Morrison’s national border restrictions, which are costing hundreds of thousands of jobs in the tourism and higher education sectors, not to mention inflicting enormous damage on Qantas itself.
Seems for Joyce and Costello it’s one rule for state Labor premiers, and another for border closures backed by the Libs.
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