To paraphrase Lloyd Bridges’ character in Flying High, the Albanese Government sure picked the wrong week to look to be favouring Qantas.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and Transport Minister Catherine King both looked weak as they tried to land “national interest” as the reason why Qatar Airways had been refused permission to schedule extra flights in and out of Oz. Their pitch was wrong and they were both forced to go around.
All in all, not a great performance in a week where Qantas head honch Alan Joyce snuck off early with his kangaroo tail between his legs and amid massive turbulence caused by claims the so called national carrier had sold seats on flights that didn’t exist, among other pieces of alleged corporate naughtiness.
It was all our mainstream media needed to throttle up all engines and get stuck into the government repeatedly; nevermind the fact that if an LNP government had used “national security” over their last nine years in office that same MSM would have been more than content with that explanation.
Which brings us to yesterday’s early edition out of the Nine Network’s Brisbane newsroom. We have remarked before about the very likely possibility that whoever writes that newsroom’s lead-ins for its 4pm and 6pm bulletins is a card-carrying member of the LNP – both the Queensland party and the federal coalition.
Newsreader Alison Ariotti opened the bulletin with fresh “claims” about the real reason for Qatar being knocked back! Ah, gotcha! Clearly the federal Opposition has dug up some info to get to the bottom of this affair. And about time too. This Labor government’s lovefest with Qantas and Albanese’s bromance with Alan Joyce has gone to far!
Of course, there were no claims at all. Just footage of Minister King repeatedly saying that, yes, Qatar’s disgusting treatment of 11 women at Doha Airport in 2020, including five Australians, had indeed been one of the matters she considered before making her ruling.
Of course, Channel 9 News was not finished there. It made much of the fact that King had made that decision without having it cleared with Albanese first. No, we’re not making this up.
In a government full of competent ministers trusted to perform well in their portfolios, King was somehow at fault for not getting clearance from chief air traffic controller Albanese before moving her set pieces and delivering a safe media airspace! Unbelievable.
But wait. There’s more. Nine then gave valuable time and space to Senator James Paterson to concoct a yarn that somehow the Qatar rebuff was a slap in the face for average Australians facing enormous cost of living pressures.
The minds of the bitter, washed-up, old hacks who compile this column immediately ran to supermarkets all around this nation of ours, with shoppers reluctantly placing back on the shelves some luxuries such as bread and milk that they would have been able to afford if, in recent days, they had only been able to prebook a European holiday with slightly reduced fares if the Albanese government had done the right thing and let Qatar jet in more often.
Can you imagine how much airspace Nine News would have given a Labor spokesperson to spruik such mindless nonsense, even if they also looked like a Nazi concentration camp kapo or someone rather junior on Joseph Goebbels’ staff?
Honestly, BUGers, you couldn’t make this shit up! And you’d fucking laugh out loud if the current state of the Australian mainstream mediocre wasn’t so bad.
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