Anthony Albanese’s son in PwC internship
Joe Aston and Myriam RobinIt’s coming up on three weeks since this column published the revelation that Anthony Albanese had procured a membership of the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge for his adult son Nathan and never declared it on the parliamentary register of interests.
This cannot be brushed aside as normal. Yes, all federal MPs and their spouses are given Chairman’s Lounge membership. But in the 15 years Alan Joyce has been chief executive of Qantas, no other serving prime minister – and no other politician, full stop – has prevailed upon the airline to also provide Chairman’s Lounge membership to their progeny.
Anthony Albanese should exercise better judgment, and proper disclosure. Alex Ellinghausen
To this day, Albanese still has not been required to answer a single question about this. Not in multiple television and radio interviews. Not in question time by the Liberal and National parties, nor by the teal independents – all elected on a platform of restoring integrity to the parliament and all of whom, upon their election, accepted membership of the Chairman’s Lounge. Albanese refused to take questions at a major Qantas media event he headlined with Joyce last week.
At this point, we have another revelation. In the first half of 2021, while he was still opposition leader, Albanese had a conversation with PwC’s then government relations boss Sean Gregory, who was pushed out of the firm in June in the scattergun purge over the tax leaks scandal.
According to multiple sources within PwC, Albanese and Gregory discussed an internship at PwC for Albanese’s son Nathan. Gregory then passed on Nathan’s information to the firm’s HR department and in June 2021, Nathan completed a two-week, unpaid placement in PwC’s Economics & Policy Unit in Sydney under PwC’s chief economist Jeremy Thorpe.
At a function months later, the Labor leader thanked PwC chief executive Tom Seymour for organising the internship, which was the first Seymour even knew about it.
PwC declined to comment. In an email, a spokesman for the prime minister said, “What you have suggested is incorrect” but then declined to clarify what was incorrect. The Prime Minister’s Office also declined to return multiple phone calls.
Bear in mind, there is no unpaid two-week internship program at PwC. There is no application process open to the public. There is no twice-yearly intake. This is an opportunity provided on an individual, ad hoc basis almost exclusively to the relatives of influential people.
It’s an opportunity provided reluctantly. No undergraduate student is qualified to do any productive client work, so menial tasks must be invented to occupy them. What’s more, their access to information at PwC is highly restricted because of – wait for it – rules around confidentiality! Major LOLs.
So, then, why would PwC do it? For one reason. The same reason you make a political donation – it’s a variation of the same theme: to earn the firm a place in the trust and good favour of that influential parent.
This is how corporate Australia operates, of course. It is how the world works. Any parent would – and does – use their connections to gain an advantage for their children. More broadly, gratuities, winks, nods and fast-tracks are all part of the game of mates in the private sector.
The game of mates, however, must end where public officialdom begins. You can’t have the family of government ministers receiving undisclosed patronage from companies the government regulates or that do business with the government.
Does that make it harder for the sons and daughters of elected leaders to get ahead without their parents playing the role of advancer? Harder than the offspring of CEOs, maybe, but certainly not harder than the offspring of truck drivers or aged care nurses. Having the surname Albanese (or Howard or Keating) and the forwarding address “Kirribilli House” on your CV is a decent professional head start without Dad needing to pick up the phone.
Serious issue
Nathan, who graduated from university in October last year, now works full-time at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. It’s safe to say he’s the only junior burger in the institutional bank with Chairman’s Lounge privileges. Imagine the next trip to Melbourne. “Sorry lads, I’ll see you all on the plane – unless you’d care to join me for a grass-fed eye fillet and a half-bottle of Ruinart blanc de blancs before take-off?”
His father’s first job out of uni was also at CommBank, his first and only job in the “real world” – a bloated public service organisation – before sliding irreparably into the Canberra bubble where reaching into your own wallet is almost never the done thing. Albo said last week he would never have privatised the CBA. If only. Nathan would’ve been CEO by now – or at least a member of the executive leadership team.
The staff directory of every investment bank and advisory firm in South-East Asia is loaded with the extended family of the region’s despots. Even poor princeling Alex Turnbull – an established liar under oath – toiled at Goldman Sachs in Singapore while his father was communications minister.
This is a serious issue because we should expect that our politicians aren’t influenced in any way by favours given to them or to members of their family. And how do we ever verify these favours if they are not declared on the parliamentary register of interests?
Perhaps emboldened by the lack of any scrutiny on the matter outside of this column, Albanese shows zero interest in coming clean on Nathan’s Chairman’s Lounge membership. This only leaves the public to wonder what else we don’t know about.
Take, in contrast, Penny Wong’s most recent updates to her register of interests. “Qatar Airways upgrade to First Class on flight QR908 from Doha to Sydney on September 25, 2022 … Hotel upgrade in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from a standard room to a Park Suite… Hotel upgrade in Paris, France from a standard room to a junior suite.” That is a woman with nothing to hide.
We are not suggesting this is the crime of the century. Nathan Albanese received no financial benefit here (although his Chairman’s Lounge membership has a monetary value). This is nevertheless a matter of legitimate public interest. The Australian media has long reported on the perquisites of the dependent adult children of prime ministers – most notably the scholarship Tony Abbott’s daughter Francesreceived to attend a college whose chairman, a Liberal donor, had even bought clothes for the Liberal leader.
None of this should be construed as an attack on the Prime Minister’s son, who has done nothing wrong. We would be very happy to leave Nathan Albanese out of our coverage. However, that would require his father to exercise better judgment, and proper disclosure.
The original version of this article incorrectly stated that Alex Turnbull worked at Goldman Sachs while Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister.