Something stinks. Should Labor’s Qantas bromance go to the corruption watchdog?

Despite the fireworks of Alan Joyce’s appearance yesterday before a Senate inquiry, the stench continues to linger over the Albanese government’s actions regarding one of Australia’s worst profiteers and monopolists, Qantas.

If anything, it’s got worse in recent days.

The airline announced a $2.5 billion profit last week, built on the back of massive and systemic price-gouging of customers, especially on international routes; abysmal service; anti-competitive behaviour on airport slots, and withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in refunds for pandemic-era flights never taken — the subject of a class action against it.

The response from the government, particularly Transport Minister Catherine King? Nothing.

Nothing on monitoring aviation prices by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, for which Labor cut funding. Nothing on a bespoke independent aviation complaints ombudsman, which King refuses to talk about. Nothing on Qantas’ anti-competitive behaviour at airports, which directly prevents other airlines from competing. And of course, no coherent reason for knocking back Qatar Airways’ request to expand its flights into Australia, which Qantas is violently against.

King, with her lame excuses for the Qatar decision, increasingly looks like the weakest link of a government that has made lack of ambition its core strategy. Her apparent cluelessness and inability to explain the rotten Qatar decision contrast direly with Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ promise to reform our inadequate competition laws. If the government won’t offend Qantas using existing laws, how can it seriously expect us to believe it will use any additional powers?

Yesterday though, the government offered at least a more honest explanation for the Qatar decision — it was about keeping Qantas profitable, Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones claimed, and ensuring the Australian airline industry remained viable (as if Qantas is so financially fragile, 21 extra flights a week would put it out of business.)

It’s no wonder King, when asked about his comments, said, “I wouldn’t have used the same words” — thereby demonstrating both her ability to put her foot in it, and the fact that Jones had said the quiet part out loud: Labor is committed to stifling competition in order to look after Qantas shareholders.

What’s all the more puzzling is that one would have assumed Labor would have been gunning for Qantas. The union movement despises it for the pathological hatred displayed by its current management towards its workers. The prime minister himself, as opposition leader in 2020, criticised Qantas for accepting JobKeeper while — as it turned out, illegally — sacking hundreds of workers.

Tony Sheldon, the former head of the Transport Workers’ Union and a long-term Qantas critic, is a high-profile Senate backbencher who continues to rail against outgoing CEO Alan Joyce and the airline’s management. He maintained the rage and went after Joyce hard yesterday during the CEO’s grilling by a Senate inquiry into the cost of living in Melbourne.

But King has made a series of inexplicable decisions that benefit Qantas, and Chalmers has ruled out requiring Qantas to repay the $2.7 billion in taxpayer handouts it received during the pandemic. Not to mention the prime minister giving flights on the prime ministerial aircraft to Joyce, Joyce giving Albanese’s son a membership of Chairman’s Lounge, and the prime minister lauding Joyce for supporting the Yes campaign.

Meanwhile, customers get gouged and endure rotten service, day after day, week after week, with those higher prices feeding into higher inflation numbers, encouraging the Reserve Bank to keep interest rates higher for longer.

The refusal of the government to explain why it is so determined to help Qantas at the expense of ordinary Australians makes the whole issue stink. Its strategy apparently is to hope people stop asking why Qantas is allowed to get away with ripping off customers and why it won’t lift a finger to prevent it.

With a more competent transport minister, and without last week’s announcement that Labor was bravely pursuing competition law reform, it might have got away with it. But the stench is getting too powerful to ignore, especially with the incendiary Joe Aston regularly launching broadsides at Joyce and Albanese in The Australian Financial Review.

Some form of intervention is required to investigate where the stink is coming from. A Senate inquiry — where partisan agendas are more important than establishing the truth — is insufficient. The first port of call might be the National Anti-Corruption Commission, although it’s unclear whether this is simple state capture, which is beyond the remit of an anti-corruption body, or a more orthodox form of the soft corruption characterising major party politics in Australia.

Alternatively, the auditor-general might look at the implementation of the government’s bilateral air services agreements policy, and delve into what exactly lies behind King’s refusal to allow Qatar to compete with Qantas, and what role King and her office played in it.

Or Labor could start being honest about its relationship with Qantas and why the public interest comes a distant second to the interests of a gouging, monopolist airline.

Are you suspicious of the protection Labor is giving Qantas? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.