By Stephen Mayne

Peter Costello’s office was on the phone shortly after yesterday’s
edition went out making a forceful argument in defence of the
Treasurer’s children getting upgraded to business class by Qantas when
flying from LA to Melbourne in January.

The staffer asserted that Cossie explicitly instructed Qantas not to
upgrade his children before they left but Qantas went ahead and
unilaterally did it anyway for the trip home. Poor Cossie was then left
in the position of having to disclose receiving a benefit that he
didn’t want in the first place.

This version of events might explain why the media appeared to severely
underplay the story but it would be nice if Qantas would publicly
corroborate the Treasurer’s story. Does our national airline really
have a policy of upgrading people against their wishes? We’d all love
to be victims of that sort of corporate disrespect.

A number of Crikey subscribers have bought into the debate in today’s comments section.