I don't think it matters. A conflict of interest, perceived or real, exists regardless.
The 'AFR' featured a lengthy article that became available last night, so is in today's paper.
It is paywalled so I can't provide a link that instantly works.
In part, the article says:
Is that the important thing? That she fulfilled her obligations to update her gifts register? Shall we throw a party and perform the slowest of claps?
King makes policy and regulates all aviation. Declaring and being “transparent” about
the lifetime benefit from the industry’s largest participant is actually wholly unimportant. Accepting it is.
This fatuous suggestion is something like, well, it can’t be a bribe if it’s out in the open. Variation of the
classic George Costanza trap: it’s not a lie if you believe it.
Since this column pointed this out on Monday afternoon, tabloid media and talkback radio have been running it red-hot. Regular punters hate this stuff. To say nothing of the Qantas lifers who paid their way into the platinum tier. Mugs!
Later, the article states:
Whenever it does come, she’s locked in a gold-plated retirement.
King has been the Labor MP for Ballarat since 2001. She’s one of only five remaining politicians who qualify for the defined benefit pension scheme, which provides for retired MPs to be paid up to 75 per cent of their salary until they die.
The scheme didn’t pass the pub test and was scrapped by
John Howard in 2004, but grandfathered for those in parliament. The MPs remaining are King,
Penny Wong,
Tanya Plibersek, Bob Katter and
Anthony Albanese.
King certainly worked hard, slogging to Canberra (and wherever else) for the job. But she never once picked up the cost of the flights that qualified her for the rarefied air of the lifetime Qantas platinum card. Taxpayers did.
In retirement, the former transport minister will be sitting flush in the first-class lounge on her way to Paris, or New York (or wherever else). Who’ll be paying for it?
