Qantas, Qatar and the Voice create turbulent conditions in parliament this week

Yes, this week in politics is brought to you by the letter Q.

And it delivered a brutal lesson in how a political perception problem that’s been smoking away quietly for months can suddenly become a spectacular, fridge-melting conflagration. And how completely a once-beloved national carrier can fall out of the sky.

Qantas has always occupied a special place in the nation’s heart. But at some point, the love died. What was the final straw? Maybe it was dizzying bonuses for executives handed out while passengers’ bags were going missing. Maybe it was posting jumbo profits while holding on to hundreds of millions in JobKeeper payments.

Maybe it was selling tickets on flights that had already been cancelled. Either way, at some juncture the Australian public seems to have developed, irreversibly, the kind of sudden-onset rage experienced by regular flyers who’ve been asked one too many times to “just pop your bag a little bit further under the seat for me please”.

And the sentiment swing was violent enough to ensure that Alan Joyce, who began the week as Qantas CEO, ended it as the nation’s highest-profile retiree.

Opprobrium is horribly catchy. And as Opposition MPs gathered this week to sink the boot into Mr Joyce’s departing derriere, much was made of his close friendship with one Anthony Norman Albanese, of 5 Adelaide Avenue, Deakin.

Why did the government decide to block Qatar Airways’ bid for more flights into Australia – a move that would have brought airfares down but damaged Qantas’ profitability? Was it anything to do with prime ministerial son Nathan Albanese getting a flag to the Chairman’s Lounge? Or was it related to Qatar’s bold decision to strip-search female Australian passengers in October 2020?

Into which turbulent conditions flew Transport Minister Catherine King this week, answering – respectively – “Can’t rightly say”, “No,” and “Sort of”. The Senate is undertaking an inquiry

Here’s Brett Worthington’s bird’s-eye view of the minister’s efforts.

You wouldn’t call it a complete debacle, but fair to say the revelation that the PM met with Virgin chief Jayne Hrdlicka and discussed the Qatar decision three days AFTER his transport minister – unbeknownst to him – had already made it, AND communicated it to the women who were stripsearched … Well. It doesn’t exactly scream “well-oiled machinery of government”.

And if – as the minister admitted this morning – the strip-search incident was a relevant factor, then why would it militate only against an expansion of Qatar’s flight privileges, rather than for a removal of all of them?

No wonder Scott Morrison found it easier to just sign himself in to all of the jobs.

The PM is away this week, but still honoured the Q theme by meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the East Asia Summit in Jakarta.

Where he announced that he will fly to Beijing in the next two months to meet with President Xi Jinping to mark the 50th anniversary of Gough Whitlam’s historic visit to China.

Marles has his own aviation issues

Deputy PM Richard Marles is standing in for Mr Albanese this week, and his aviation issues are of a different order from those plaguing his boss. The defence minister has his own airline – the RAAF VIP service – and he’s under heavy fire this week for not disclosing exact detail of more than $3 million he’s chalked up in flight expenses.

An avid golfer, the opposition has taken to demanding details of how often the minister’s clubs have been loaded into the VIP jet.

Richard Marles also has aviation issues but they are a little different to those plaguing Anthony Albanese.(Defence Department: Kym Smith)

The Yes campaign’s big reveal and one for Dutton, too

Peter Dutton, a man who has decried the cost of the referendum, kicked off the week declaring he now wants another one!

A couple of caveats… the Voice would need to fail, the Coalition would need to win the next election and then Mr Dutton will absolutely, definitely, most certainly hold a referendum on what he says is a policy the Coalition has taken to many elections.

You might recall they were, in many instances, elections the Coalition won … and yet, mysteriously, no record of any referendum. Might need to check the fine print on this one.

Peter Dutton has decried the cost of the referendum but he kicked off the week declaring he wants another one. (ABC News: Nick Haggarty)

The big reveal for the Yes campaign this week was John Farnham has consented to the use of his 1986 anthem; a tricky development for Mr Dutton, given that Farnham is deeply beloved by exactly the kind of unassuming suburban Aussie that the opposition leader hopes will vote No.

A quick Google lyric search yielded a rhetorical fix: Mr Dutton concluded that the song was perfect for the Yes campaign because it exhorts listeners to “try to understand it”, which in the Liberal leader’s argument is beyond the cognitive powers of the average Joe.

In other Voice news, Victorian Opposition leader John Pesutto, having been emitting powerful “YES-curious” pheromones for months, has now plumped for NO.

The No campaign is being accused of refusing to meet with the experts calling for a respectful referendum and here’s a handy guide for how to vote, where and when.

Also, a bracing read from the ABC’s democracy leprechaun Antony Green. It’s not that hard, he explains.

Plus, the new episode of Fran Kelly and Carly Williams’ podcast, The Voice Referendum Explained, deals with the question of whether the Voice would make a difference to service delivery for First Nations people. Get it here!

And on Kitchen Cabinet this week, Lidia Thorpe lifted the lid on her surprising network of friends. Also: Keep your guilty white tears to yourself, she’s not your personal reassurance service.