It is well known that Anthony Albanese booked his own flights, even as a minister.

Although this was considered a bit strange by our colleagues, we now know why, with former Australian Financial Review columnist Joe Aston revealing that Alan Joyce was still there with a pre-authorized upgrade for the Prime Minister.

Albanese can’t hide behind the excuse that all upgrades have been declared when in fact he knew that every time he pressed confirm Qantas Red E-deal cattle class seat he would automatically get an upgrade to first class.

It’s in a totally different ballpark than Taylor Swift tickets, grand final giveaways and free lunches.

Sure, they were all free, but he didn’t know at the time of ordering that he would get an automatic benefit, as he did when booking direct with then-Qantas CEO Joyce.

Albo knew that a profit would accrue each time and this is the moral hazard that Joyce willingly allowed the Minister for Transport and the Shadow Minister for Transport to participate in.

It is clear that no other Labor minister has achieved so many advantages. Upgrades for them were considerably more random, but not for Albo’s.

Voters should question every decision made to benefit Qantas.

This includes refusing competition in our skies by excluding investors or criticizing airports that wanted to expand to offer more boarding gates for planes other than Qantas planes.

For Albo, getting 1A was like shooting fish in a barrel.

It’s not about whether Albo declared the upgrade stacks. This is proof of moral hazard, but it is not its absolution.

Albanese has a very carefully curated narrative about a boy from poverty who manages to become Prime Minister.

That veneer and image seriously deteriorated when he purchased a $4.3 million clifftop retirement home and revealed himself to be just another rent lord when he evicted his tenant to make a super profit on the duplex in Dulwich.

Today, Albo seems to be guided by a flawed view of himself as a latter-day Robin Hood living by the moral code “If you’re a poor boy, you can rob the rich.”

Albanese would have voters believe that 28 years in Parliament brings judgment and experience, but instead Albanese appears to have wallowed in freebies while harshly sucking the taxpayer’s teat.

It is not for nothing that the internal cafeteria of the Federal Parliament, where collaborators and deputies mingle, is called the hollow.

For so many MPs, Parliament is like an all-you-can-eat buffet, stocked with a John Cleese waiter and a bucket. A senior Labor senator once described Parliament to me as Temptation Island for ugly people.

Even our sober Treasurer spoke of evenings in Parliament where he ‘left a little socially detached’

It is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Albo took on challengers within his caucus. He doesn’t care how many Greens or Teals he can govern with as long as he is still Prime Minister.

Unless voters reject him in the next election, Albanese will have spent three decades and nearly half his adult life dependent on taxpayer money and corporate largesse.

It’s never a question of whether it was declared. That’s because he should never have agreed to Qantas’ automatic upgrades in the first place.

Albanese seems unaware of how serious the situation is. He’s an aloof Albo at best, but voters will just see him as a more arrogant Albo.

And after years and years of accepting Qantas’ upgrades and countless decisions and non-decisions that could have benefited Qantas, what finally made Albanese wake up to the conflict and act on it? end?

Have your own plane, Toto One.

No longer requiring upgrades, Albo’s sense of entitlement didn’t stop there. He asked Joyce to become a member of the Chairman’s Club for his son Nathan. Now, Nathan is, I’m sure, a remarkable 23 year old, but he only got membership because his father asked for it and his father was the Prime Minister.

In true Albanese family tradition, the Chairman’s Lounge also offers you free flight upgrades!

Albanese is doing his best version of “keep calm and carry on”, and his moral outrage at how this is all a problem horrifies Labor voters and rank-and-file members.

Queensland Labor lost a vital week of campaigning because Albo and his MPs defended the indefensibility of him buying a $4.3 million retirement home.

But this one smacks of scandal.

Albo’s defense that this statement alone absolves the moral hazard he willingly engaged in simply does not hold up.

He has serious questions to answer.

Voters can’t just be fooled by the equivalent of “Your flight was delayed due to your plane arriving late.”

Albanese, we now know, was not expecting a late gift. Instead, he knew that if he booked a flight himself through his personal travel agent, the CEO of Qantas, he would get first class, even if he agreed to the fare conditions for cattle class.

And this is the fundamental problem for Albo.