And good luck to them. It will bring necessary competition to the industry and ultimately assist the environment for lower international airfares. Thats a good thing. And it shouldn’t have taken the proposed acquisition to create more competition in the market.
My obsession is with Essendon. I’m obsessed. I also see a shrink for my form of obsessionism mate 
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I have passed on your best regards to Cathy King.
I asked her to ban Qatar Airlines from Australia completely, just to take away your ability to fly with them.
I could just fly to Singapore or Jakarta and hop on them in that case 
Can’t wait for them to own Virgin though, going to be the shake up the industry needs in Australia
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Ooh, the NACC inspector smacks down NACCs decision to not investigate Robodebt. Specifically calls out NACCs statement as ‘misleading’.
Brereton has absolutely got to go from NACC, surely? The head of NACC, putting out a misleading statement, about a corruption allegations against a friend of his, after a process he said to have recused himself from but it turns out he sat in on almost the entire time?
Yay Australia. Setting a new world record for how quickly we can have an anti-corruption commission collapse under the weight of its own corruption.
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Inflation at 2.8% cost of living crisis is officially over.
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I mean, in bureaucracy-world it doesn’t often get put as unambiguously and brutally as this.
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Re NACC/ScomoDebt : FMD, that’s actually appalling. As in, something actually to be talking about and thoroughly examined in the media.
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Disgraceful.
Should be prison time for some yet many people on here did point out that nothing would ever come of this
Untenable, he has to step down.
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That’s headline inflation. Unfortunately for me and many others the RBA uses trimmed mean inflation (underlying inflation) to calibrate rates. Trimmed mean inflation adjusts for one offs or short term impacts such as the electricity subsidies
And now the chickens may be homeward bound to roost.
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i’ve seen enough. north melbourne should fold, kick souths out of the comp, and drop a nuclear bomb on the city of sydney
come to think of it, its a great example of what fuels “dEeP sTaTe!” stuff perpetuated by loons. that genuine unchecked power is wielded by unelected public servants
the dirty secret behind many conspiracy theories is that there are often small fragments of truth behind them, its just those fragments are dry and boring enough and not hidden at all that we often miss them
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Trimmed mean is 3.5% cost of living crises is over.
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As to Qatar Airways, there is a new scandal involving gifts to an Estonian, a high level EU official in charge of transport, receiving lavish gifts in exchange for information.
He quit his post after being revealed that there was a link to Qatar Air given access under the EU blue skies policy.
There are now further fraud investigations involving him and his family.
I hope none of out pollies have been in receipt of favours from Qatar Air.
Anthony Albanese has broken his silence on the Qantas upgrade mess revealing an audit of his travel has confirmed he never directly called Qantas CEO Alan Joyce about upgrades for personal travel.
But crucially, the Prime Minister is not denying - as revealed by news.com.au - that he or his staff may have called Qantas’ government relations contacts or the Chairman’s Lounge “hotline” to arrange flight upgrades for family holidays.
Instead, the Prime Minister is unequivocally denying for the first time that he ever personally liaised with Mr Joyce directly on the subject of upgrades for family holidays.
“The Prime Minister did not ever call Alan Joyce seeking an upgrade,’’ a spokesperson told news.com.au.
“All travel has been appropriately declared and is a matter of public record.”
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Taken from the page of Carrick Ryan on FB
I’ve been outspoken in calling out Albanese for pursuing his free Qantas upgrades, but the pearl clutching from the Opposition and News Corp is so obviously disingenuous because they sat unperturbed through corruption scandal after corruption scandal from the Morrison Government.
There needs to be a uniformed reset of what behaviour we accept in Canberra… it’s probably up to our Independents to set that standard, because clearly none or the major parties are going to do it.
The below is an excerpt from a post I made four years ago detailing just SOME of the Coalitions corruption scandals.
#SpyGate
Bo ‘Nick’ Zhao, a Chinese born Australian goes to ASIO telling them he’s been offered a $1million from the Chinese Government to run as a Liberal Party candidate and then infiltrate the Australian Parliament as a Chinese Spy.
He then turns up dead in a Melbourne hotel room in March.
Enter Gladys Liu, the Liberal Candidate with a host of concerning connections to the Chinese Government who earns Liberal pre-selection thanks to miraculously raising a million dollars in donations.
Fairfax then discovered a photo of Liu at her home with Nick Zhao in the back ground.
Gladys is now the Liberal Member for Chisolm.
#SignGate
Liberal Candidates Gladys Liu and Josh Frydenberg both have Mandarin signs at polling booths in the colours of the Australian Electoral Commission branding telling Chinese citizens how to vote (by putting 1 next to the Liberal Candidate). There is no Liberal Party branding on the sign
Liberal officials admit in court that the signs were designed to convey the appearance of official electoral commission material.
#LetterGate
Angus Taylor writes a public letter, published in the Daily Telegraph, to Sydney Mayor Clover Moore criticising her for her millions of dollars of domestic travel. The document he quotes is a forgery.
Taylor refuses to disclose where he got the fake document from and refuses all Freedom of Information requests from the media that might give an insight.
#DuttonGate
Fake ‘How To Vote’ cards were handed out in Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson designed to trick Greens Voters in voting for Dutton.
#PhilippinesGate
George Christensen charges tax payers for domestic flights and ComCar trips that were part of his trips to known red light districts of the Philippines. When he is caught he simply pays back $2,100 with no consequences.
#DroughtenEnvoyGate
Barnaby runs up a bill of $675,000 in 9 months in his role as Special Drought Envoy. When asked what he did in the role, Joyce explained that he sent his “report” in the form of multiple text messages to Morrison. When The Guardian submitted a Freedom Of Information request for these texts it was rejected on the grounds that Morrison was too busy to retrieve them.
#reefgate
The Coalition granted $444million to a little known organisation called the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. The process involved no public tender, no transparency, and the organisation was later found to have business partnerships with BHP and Rio Tinto.
#paladingate
The Coalition awarded a $423million contract to run Manus Island detention facilities to a tiny and almost unknown company called Paladin as part of a “limited tender” process only meant to be used under special circumstances. The company’s head office was a small shack on Kangaroo Island and family members of the PNG Parliament were found to be directly profiting from the contract.
#helloworldgate
Helloworld travel agency paid for Finance Minister Mathias Cormann’s family holiday to Singapore within two weeks of the Coalition awarding Helloworld a Government contract worth over $1billion.
Cormann claims he didn’t notice his holiday had been free.
#aupairgate
On two seperate occasions, Peter Dutton personally intervened to have European au pairs allowed into the country after being initially refused by Border Force.
The first was on behalf of an old Police colleague, the second on behalf of the AFL Chief Executive and son of a Liberal Party donor.
#vikkigate
Barnaby Joyce’s mistress, Vikki Campion was forced to leave her role as his staffer when rumours of their affair started causing tension with colleagues. As a result she was given a plum $190,000 a year job with good friend Senator Matt Canavan despite Parliamentary rules prohibiting jobs for ‘partners’.
There were a number of allegations suggesting she never attended work whilst in this role.
#foxtelgate
The Coalition granted $30million to Foxtel, ostensibly to assist with “sports coverage” (whilst simultaneously slashing ABC funding). There was no public release of any conditions or oversight regarding the funding. News Corp, the largest newspaper owner in Australia and the owners of Foxtel, vigorously and unapologetically proceeds to support the Coalition whilst attacking Labor in the next election.
#mundinegate
The Coalition granted $200,000 to Foxtel station Sky News to fund a new show featuring future Liberal Candidate Warren Mundine. The funding was taken from money budgeted for “Indigenous Advancement”.
Inquiries later found that the funding had been officially approved before Mundine had even formally applied for it.
#internetgate
Assistant Treasurer Stuart Robert charged tax payers $2,000 a month for home internet, blaming “connectivity issues”. He was later forced to repay $38,000 in inappropriately claimed expenses but was not further investigated.
#darwingate
The Coalition award a Chinese company a 99 year lease on Darwin Port. A year later, Andrew Robb, the Trade Minister at the time of the deal, leaves the Government to assume an $880,000 a year job as a “Consultant” with the same Chinese company.
#watergate
Barnaby Joyce approved a dodgy $80million water buy back from a property owned by a Cayman Island’s based company that Energy Minister Angus Taylor used to be the Director of and his college mate now ran.
When Twitter users began to discuss it his lawyers sent letters to them threatening legal action for defamation if they didn’t delete the tweets.
#grassgate
A property owned by Energy Minister Angus Taylor’s brother was alleged to have illegally burned 30 hectares of native grassland classified as endangered under existing environment laws.
After Angus Taylor personally intervened and met with then Environment Minsiter Josh Frydenberg about the investigation into his brother, the Government suddenly announced a review into the part of Commonwealth environment laws that specifically deals with endangered native grasses.
#SportsRorts
Over $100million in grants to sporting clubs were handed out according to a colour coded spreadsheet showing if the clubs were in marginal or potentially winnable electorates.
The Government overruled the recommendations of the Sports Commission 300 times, instead giving photo ops to LNP candidates just before the election.
The PM denied any involvement despite extensive email evidence showing his office was calling the shots.
#Robodebt
In 2016, the Government set up an automated debt recovery mechanism to recover welfare overpayments.
However the calculations used by the system were deeply flawed and demanded repayments from thousands who hadn’t been overpaid a cent.
To make matters worse, the new process reversed the onus of proof on the recipient to prove they hadn’t been overpaid.
Over 2000 Australians died after receiving Robodebt notices. A large (although unknown) number have been attributed to self harm.
In 2020, the Government finally admitted the system was flawed and paid back or forgave $1.2billion in debts.
#CovidCommissionGate
Morrison hand picks a Gas Company Chairman to run a “Covid Commission” to plan Australia’s post-Covid economy.
He was paid $500k for 6 months work. He eventually recommends tax payers underwrite a “gas led” recovery. The shares for the company he works for rises 8%.
#FoxtelGate2
When Foxtel missed out a $100million pandemic rescue package, News Corp execs wrote directly to Coalition Ministers to complain and immediately received $17.5 in tax payer grants.
When the ABC requested copies of the communication under FOI, the Government refused stating that it would damage the relationship between the Sports Minister and the PM.
#SharmaShareGate
As the Government was deciding whether or not to bail out Virgin Airlines, MP Dave Sharma purchased shares in Virgin’s biggest competitor, Qantas.
Months later, just before Morrison announced an agreement with CSL to make millions of doses of a Covid vaccine, Sharma just happened to have bought CSL shares.
#CormannGate
Mathias Cormann quits the Coalition with aspirations to become the OECD Secretary General.
Tax payers fund his $4,300 per hour Private Jet to fly him to and around Europe as well as 8 full time Government employees to assist him.
#ChristmasRort
For the 2nd year in a row, Scott Morrison, Josh Frydenberg, and Peter Dutton fly by private jet from Canberra to Sydney (and back) purely to attend Lachlan Murdoch’s Christmas Party.
Tax payers fund the trip.
#PyneGate
While he was Defence Minister, Pyne awarded over $98million in contracts to a defence contractor named Elbit Systems.
In December 2020, Elbit Systems suddenly announced it has hired Pyne’s lobbying firm “Pyne and Partners” in a contract of unknown value.
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…but apart from that…
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