A Special Correspondent | Canberra
The fleet comprises two Boeing 737 business jets and three smaller Bombardier Challenger 604 jets, operated by 34 Squadron out of Defence Establishment Fairbairn, is an easy Commonwealth car ride from the power centres of Canberra.
The endless controversies of course mostly don't relate to the aircraft themselves but to how they are operated by members of the government of the day. An imperfect barometer of government fortunes relates to the frequency of stories in the tabloid media about politician exploitation of this very expensive taxpayer funded perk.
Admission: Over many years in the defence space, your correspondent has travelled far and wide on RAAF aircraft.
Some flights have been exhilarating, such as the C-130 flight from Kuwait into Baghdad at the time when the security situation dictated flying low and fast to avoid insurgent gunfire. Some have been exceedingly uncomfortable, such as the flight from Cocos Island back to Richmond in a C-130 with no heating. That particular flight made it into Hansard as also aboard were member of the Senate defence committee returning from Somalia.
Numerous flights have been routine and wholly unexceptional, thanks to competent professional crews and well-maintained aircraft.
But hands down, the most comfortable and agreeable flights have been aboard RAAF VIP aircraft, an experience which at the peak is comparable to commercial airliner first class - dining off starched table cloths with meals and good wine served by courteous RAAF flight attendants.
There's the added bonus that on international flights, the same efficient RAAF attendants take care of all those tiresome immigration formalities, allowing the VIPs, and the occasionally accompanying media representatives, to be whisked speedily from airport to hotel aboard transport organised by the local embassy or High Commission.
This is an alluring and captivating experience which government MPs can come to accept as their due, right up to the moment they feature in the Daily Telegraph. As reporting goes, this isn't too difficult - schedules of just who was on what flight are compiled and tabled regularly in parliament and are enthusiastically perused by members of the press gallery.
League tables on which minister spent most taxpayer funds on VIP travel are easy to compile and a certain means to provoke outrage in the battler suburbs of western Sydney.
VIP air travel has always been contentious and occasionally tragic.
In August 1940, a Hudson bomber crashed on the outskirts of Canberra, killing all on board, including aviation minister James Fairbairn and two other cabinet ministers plus chief of the general staff General Cyril Cyril Brudenell White.
For a nation embarking on war, this was an appalling loss and there were many consequences. The government of Robert Menzies was weakened and eventually fell.
White was as distinguished a soldier as Australia has ever produced – his staff work was responsible for the successful evacuation of Gallipoli and he would have commanded the Australian corps in the war’s closing stages were there not an even better soldier in John Monash. Had White remained, he would likely have commanded Australian troops through WWII, not Thomas Blamey.
One of those promoted in the reshuffle following the 1940 air crash was Harold Holt who, years later, would endure his own VIP aircraft controversy. This particular scandal is little remembered now but it produced many enduring lessons, recounted in an excellent account by historian Ian Hancock.
Holt succeeded Menzies as PM in January 1966 and inherited a simmering row over the government’s freshly upgraded VIP fleet.
That initially comprised two Viscounts, two Convair Metropolitans and five Dakotas. In 1965, the government decided to hang onto the Viscounts but replace the rest with three Mystere 20s and two Hawker Siddeley 748s with two BAC111s on order.
The bill came to $11.4 million, which even at this distance sounds like a bargain - which it certainly wasn’t as the government had neglected to account for running and support costs.
By 1967, an audit report indicated costs had doubled. Holt was reluctant to disclose any details at all – according to Hancock, fearing that public opinion “primed by prejudiced journalists and by envious politicians who did not qualify for VIP flights” would view the fleet as an expensive and abused luxury.
The full costs of the VIP fleet remained obscured within the overall defence budget.
Into this intruded politics. In 1965, Menzies gave the go-ahead for then opposition leader Arthur Calwell to use a VIP aircraft to return from Perth to Canberra to attend a parliament session called at short notice.
Accompanying Calwell were two Labor officials, one the hard-left Victorian branch secretary Bill Hartley. Democratic Labor Party Senator Vince Gair learned of this and, seeking to embarrass Labor, placed some questions on notice. So did Labor MP Fred Daly.
The government responded that passenger manifests weren’t retained for long - which was clearly misleading.
In February 1967, a Melbourne newspaper published a photo of three miniskirt clad Holt girls, one of his stepsons, two small children and a nurse, all fresh off a VIP flight from Canberra. The media went ballistic.
Not until October did Holt stand up in parliament and his explanation was hardly convincing. He continued to insist the government didn’t know who was on what flights.
Yes they did, which was amply demonstrated when government Senate leader John Gorton tabled the various flight manifests, a move some on his side viewed as outright treachery but which left Gorton well-placed when fate intervened on December 17, 1967.
With the government licking its wounds and pondering how it could perform better after an unimpressive year, Holt went swimming at Portsea and vanished into the churning seas.
Hancock concluded that air minister Peter Howson set a new standard for ministerial ignorance in not knowing what was going on in his own department. But the real delinquent was Holt whose political ineptitude allowed a minor matter to escalate into a major crisis.
With Holt’s death, the scandal effectively fizzled out. Had he not taken his fateful dip and remained as PM, the VIP aircraft row would have continued, perhaps even contributing to a Labor victory in 1969 rather than 1972.