Oliver Peterson: Australian correspondent on Virgin Australia calling out politicians for flying Qantas

Most Australian politicians and their staffers have opted to fly Qantas, despite rules stating the cheaper fare must be chosen.

Virgin Australia has raised concerns - and pointed out the preference for the pricier airline is costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars every year.

 Australian correspondent Oliver Peterson says Virgin's services leave a lot to be desired - and they don't offer several key routes. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
International Correspondence with Ends and Eye Insurance, Peace of Mind
for New Zealand business.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oliver Peterson six PR Perth Life presenters with us.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey, Ollie, Hey that we got Cold Player a year ago,
so Perth was first. How good's that?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
My gosh, honestly you are. Has anybody told you how
competitive you are?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
You know what? I'm also barracking for the New Zealand
cricket team. How good is it? You want three zip
against India? That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I got a message from somebody and I can't find
it right now because it's somewhere in my email inbox,
like way way down. But it's somebody who calls themselves
a sports broadcaster or in Australia who wrote to me
to say he wanted to come on our show and
tell us off for constantly getting excited about punching above
our weight to the sporting world and nobody really cares

(00:46):
like That's how badly Australians have taken the fact that
we actually are better than them.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
A cricket I don't even know whose is I'm on
board right. I don't know why I really like your cricket.
I hate your rugby team, but I love your cricket
team because you are the underdog, because you're not meant
to be very good at cricket, right and the fact
that you are and you always exactly. I love the
underdog story of New Zealand and I sincerely mean that,

(01:10):
so I am all for I'm in your corner. I
think that's one of the greatest sporting achievements ever that
New Zealand has been India three nil in conditions which
are impossible to be victorious. So you deserve, you deserve
to give yourself a big pat on the back and
celebrate it long and hard all week for you know
what your new PM should be getting you all.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
The day off today public holiday, and I think exactly,
so I appreciate how magnanimous you're being right now, Oliver,
thank you for that's very out of character for you. Hey, listen,
I'm something serious. Have they managed to find this eleven
year old?

Speaker 1 (01:41):
No? Not yet. Isn't this awful? I mean, this is
just horrible. You had an eleven year old, a seven
year old and a three year old just standing there
on the Central coast yesterday and they got swept out
into the ocean by the currents. The three year old,
the seven year old have been found. The eleven year old,
you would presume unfortunately whenever going to find him or
he won't be alive. That's what he's just so sad.
The forty three year old father tried to get to

(02:02):
his son disappeared under the water. Police were out there.
They had an extensive land and air and sea search
that was obviously suspended when they lost light yesterday, but
they're back out there today. They'll continue throughout the day,
but you would imagine it probably wouldn't go much further
if they don't recover a body. That is just heartbreaking
for that poor family.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, I totally agree now as anybody. So I see
Virgin wants to fly Ozzie's politicians and can Avericon they
do it for cheap. Is any politician going to want
to fly Virgin?

Speaker 1 (02:29):
But this is look, this is part of the problem,
to be honest, and I understand that absolutely. I mean,
I think all companies around Australia and New Zealand at
the moment are really putting the pressure on their employees
to try and take the cheapest possible flight at the
most convenient time. I don't think anyone would say that
it would be worth trying to pay more money to
go on on a more expensive airline if all of

(02:50):
a sudden the flights were leaving it at the same time.
But you don't remember Virgin he's a really small player
in Australia now, it's only about twenty percent of the
domestic aviation market. But look, they do make a good
point because supposedly these contracts are worth about two hundred
and fifty million dollars per year to fly the polls
and their staff around Australia. Virgin only has a twenty
three percent of that two hundred and fifty million dollars spend,

(03:11):
so it wants to up that spend. But they've got
obviously put on more planes, have more accessibility. Like give
you an example, if you want to fly from Perth
to Canbra there's only one flight a day on Quantas.
Virgin don't even fly from Perth to Camera So then
if you've got to go to Melbourne or Sydney, I
want you to be a five hour direct flight. I
mean you're talking ten or twelve hours, so sometimes it's
not as convenient. I do believe though, they should be

(03:32):
trying to find that, you know, if you've got a
flight leaving at seven am in the morning, it's going
from Sydney to Canberra and the contus ones three times
is more expensive. We'll fly Virgin, but you can understand
that people are going to be flying on the more
convenient times. Yes, it might cost more, but maybe there
has to be more pressure on reviewing whatever is the
cheapest available at whatever is the time that is also
going to be working for that particular individual.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Now I suppose so, I mean that's a bit of
a pain rate because you get into the club's quants,
don't you.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, that's wrong in the chairman's club, right. I mean
we're a people getting in their header and getting a
little drink and a sausage roll before you take off.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
It's just convenient. Hey, So what has the opposition got
planned for Woolworths and Coals if they get in.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
So, I mean they talked tough by saying they'd break
them up. Basically that's what David little Proud wanted to
do the National Party leader. It's walk back on that
a little bit. But what he's now saying is if
they have bought a parcel of land, saying western Sydney,
that they're not doing anything with that they're sitting on
because they don't want their rival to set up opposing supermarket.
They're going to force them to sell that land. So
they're going to force them to say, if you're not

(04:30):
going to develop it within say five years, sell it,
let another player come in. That's the start of their policy.
Now they're going to try and obviously sell this to
the Australian public by saying this is about cost of
living pressures and trying to reduce your grocery bills, by
saying if Coals and Woolies don't want it, maybe Aldi
wants it, maybe an independent wants it, maybe somebody else
wants it to try and save you a few bucks

(04:51):
at the checkout. I think it's a hard one to
try and again sell to the general population. I don't
think that they're sitting on dozens and dozens of green
field sites and you'll probably find ultimately Heather one of
these other big major supermarket chains, one of the smaller
ones looks at it and thinks, so hold on, we
probably wouldn't be able to develop and make any money ourselves.
So look seem to be doing something absolutely theory. It

(05:13):
sounds good practice, good luck.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
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