THE Helloworld political scandal reached new highs yesterday, when testimony presented before a Senate committee quoted former QBT chief Russell Carstensen providing details of a meeting with Australian Ambassador to the USA, Joe Hockey, which had allegedly been organised by Helloworld Travel Chief Executive Officer Andrew Burnes (TD breaking news).
Carstensen, who abruptly resigned from Helloworld Travel last year (TD 23 May 2018), had been head of the Air Tickets business and was also instrumental in QBT’s win of the Whole of Australian Government TMC contract (TD 12 Dec 2014).
He was Helloworld’s highest paid employee in 2014/15 but had his salary considerably reduced the following year after a “recalibration” of executive remuneration initiated by Burnes.
Late yesterday the company issued a formal statement from Burnes, emphatically denying the statements aired in Senate Estimates, saying “I did not organise any meetings between Russell Carstensen and Joe Hockey…Mr Carstensen’s own email of 24 Apr, 2017, shows that he organised the meeting with Mr Hockey and I was simply CCed on the email”.
Burnes denied ever having told Carstensen that Hockey “owes me” or any words to that effect, and pointed out he had never received special treatment from any Liberal Government.
He noted that the Whole of Australian Government Accommodation Management contract awarded to AOT was won under the Federal Labor Government in 2012, and that AOT was a competitor of HLO in 2015 when Helloworld won the Government TMC contract.
In Parliament yesterday Labor leader Bill Shorten announced that if elected later this year, “Helloworld will be the first item” for a newly established National Integrity Commission.
Source: traveldaily