It has taken six days for Anthony Albanese and his office to finally rule out ever having contacted the former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, or anyone else at the airline, to request flight upgrades.
Over the course of nearly a week, the prime minister has batted away questions, downplayed the growing controversy, and eventually answered the question that had been asked of him since Saturday.
On Thursday morning, the prime minister’s office eventually said there had been no contact of any kind from Albanese to anyone at Qantas about his flight upgrades.
This is how the week unfolded.
Saturday
Extracts from The Chairman’s Lounge, a book from former Australian Financial Review journalist Joe Aston, are published in the Nine newspapers. The book states Albanese declared flight upgrades on about 20 Qantas flights between 2009 and 2019 while he occupied various positions including transport minister, shadow transport minister and opposition leader. Some flights were declared as “personally funded” or to destinations including Rome, London, Los Angeles and Honolulu – others were work-related.
“According to Qantas insiders, Albanese would liaise with Joyce directly about his personal travel,” Aston reported.
Albanese, at the time, was in Samoa for the Chogm meeting.
Sunday
Albanese returns to Sydney. In a brief doorstop at a cultural festival, he tries to downplay the reporting and defends his conduct.
“From time to time, members of parliament receive upgrades, what’s important is that they are declared,” he said.
The prime minister explains some flights were work-related, including one non-commercial flight to promote a new Qantas route and 10 during the Labor leadership campaign when he unsuccessfully sought to be elected party leader.
Albanese is not asked whether he liaised directly with Joyce on upgrades, but he also did not rule it out proactively.
Monday
Albanese does not give any public comments. Numerous federal ministers are asked about the story, giving strong defences of Albanese and his disclosures.
The workplace relations minister, Murray Watt, calls the story “rumours that have been put around unsourced by a journalist”.
Tuesday
Albanese holds a press conference in Newcastle on a Tafe announcement. After requesting journalists ask him “local questions” on the announcement first, his opening answer to Qantas questions sees him go on the attack – against the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, and Aston himself.
“I didn’t have to declare any flights on private jets owned by billionaires like Gina Rinehart because I haven’t engaged in it, as simple as that,” Albanese said.
Albanese’s register of interests includes a declaration of a helicopter flight from billionaire Linfox owner Lindsay Fox for a “private lunch” at his Portsea mansion.
Dutton accepted flights in 2022 from Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, including a Perth-to-Pilbara air fare and flights between Sydney, Rockhampton and Mackay to attend a Bali bombing memorial. In 2023 he was flown to a party at Hancock’s Pilbara mine by another billionaire rich-lister, where he praised Rinehart’s contribution to Australia.
Asked directly whether he had called Joyce seeking an upgrade, Albanese repeatedly evades questions, saying: “Well you can’t just – there’s no accusation being made with any specifics at all about any of this.”
A journalist counters: “I’m asking a specific question.”
Albanese responds: “People are, Peter Dutton is making this statement. If there is a suggestion to be made, let it be made specifically and I’ll answer it.”
Albanese does not answer that suggestion and ends the news conference shortly after. He says “the only discussions I can recall with Alan Joyce” were about the first flight from Australia to Dubai on a Qantas A380.
Albanese refers to Aston as a “person who is trying to sell a book” and complained “I don’t see declarations that he’s a former Liberal party staffer”.
Aston tweets shortly after that the information was “disclosed on the first line of the first page of the book”.
It is disclosed on the first line of the first page of the book, and has never been a secret. This is beyond desperate from the PM. pic.twitter.com/nDeisDIym3
— Joe Aston (@mrjoeaston) October 29, 2024
Wednesday
Albanese does not hold any public appearances. About 6pm on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the prime minister on Wednesday says “the prime minister did not ever call Alan Joyce seeking an upgrade”.
“All travel has been appropriately declared and is a matter of public record.”
The statement does not expressly rule out other forms of contact with Joyce beyond a phone call, such as emails or text messages, nor did it deny contact with other Qantas employees seeking an upgrade. However, government sources on Thursday claim there was no contact of any kind.
Thursday
Albanese insists he never contacted Joyce directly, nor through an intermediary, to share travel plans or seek flight upgrades.
The prime minister’s office says Albanese did not contact Joyce by phone, email, text message or any other direct means and also did not directly contact Qantas government relations executive Andrew Parker, as has been alleged in some media reports, or any other airline staff to seek an upgrade.
2GB host Ben Fordham said he spoke to Albanese on Wednesday night, when the PM denied ever texting or emailing Joyce, or ever sharing any of his travel plans with the former airline chief, or having another contact at Qantas that he would seek upgrades from. Asked why it took six days for such a comprehensive response to finally come, despite days of requests and questions, Fordham said: “The prime minister says it’s taken a number of days to go through all of his records. He says he’s checked his history of text messages with Alan Joyce, and there’s nothing there about upgrades.
“The PM says he didn’t want to come out earlier in the week and issue a complete denial in case he’d missed something.”
Fordham said on Thursday morning he asked: “Was there someone else at Qantas you were seeking upgrades from or sharing your travel plans with? Again, the PM replied: ‘No’.”
