My name is Madonna King and, for a decade or so, I was a member of the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge.

Writing those words seems almost like revealing a dirty secret or admitting to an addiction that required a 12-step salvation plan.

Its privileges are accessed through a golden door that opens automatically, like in a fairytale, the headlines this week have claimed.

Just like Aladdin’s Cave with Alan Joyce the genie.

An exclusive party lounge where unlimited cocktails are free and food is cooked on demand. An invite-only club, unlike any other, where the nation’s big wigs are treated with curtsies and personal attention, akin to their very own butler.

The truth falls a bit short of that. In fact, Alan Joyce’s Irish bluster – labelling it the most exclusive club on the planet or something like that is a bit of hyperbole that has now blown up in his face.

Yes, there are ministers wandering around without staff inside those big discreet gold doors. Former prime ministers, and current ones too, spend time there between flights. And company chiefs and senior public servants, judges and authors and top medicos.

There’s entertainers – my favourite being working-class man Jimmy Barnes – and influencers too, premiers and small business leaders, university chancellors and vice-chancellors and academics and local government leaders.

Like a corporate box

And even senior journalists from all sorts of publications – newspaper, television, radio and online.

Now surely that means it’s not too elite?

In fact, if you take away the white tablecloths and the fact that staff know your name, it’s just like any other business lounge or CBD office foyer you can imagine – but with a view of the landing strip and free food and drinks for folks who don’t really need them.

It’s a bit like a good corporate box at the NRL, or being in the chairman’s circle for the AFL grand final – without either the chatter or the celebration. And how handy for Richard Goyder that he can move freely between both – as does the guest list.

Mainly, people are waiting for their next flight.

Sometimes they’re busy working. I’ve finished many chapters of books in a quiet corner between flights. And perhaps as a small sign of elitism or that commitment to keeping it quiet, someone will come and tell you the flight is now boarding.

Standards differ

Of course, the standard differs according to the city in which you enter those doors that carry no sign, just an introduction to a touch of the bourgeoisie.

Brisbane was always my favourite, because the doors really are big and gold. In Sydney, they are black and almost hidden. From memory, Melbourne is the same. Canberra is vast and particularly busy at the end of sitting weeks when bonhomie and bipartisanship are flowing.

But Melbourne stood out as always packed to the rafters.

That might be because in Sydney, like most things, the chairman’s lounge is bigger, more expansive, and perhaps a touch more brash, even if one corner is taken up with a library or art and design books and plenty of room to spread them out.

In property terms, Sydney has fewer chosen ones to each square metre.

Alan Joyce and Qantas have long been secretive of the club. Photo: AAP

But none of them match the equivalent of the chairman’s counterpart found in Dubai where somehow I once was mistakenly and happily directed.

There, the food of your choice is not only brought to your table side … but cooked there too.

It has suited Qantas, and its former boss Alan Joyce, to create a mystique around its chairman’s lounge by refusing to answer questions, reveal who steps inside those doors, and how even they are chosen.

But what’s the difference between that and other company schemes that reward loyal and big-spending clients or people who might be able to assist their business?

Absolutely nothing.

An issue of transparency

At issue here is transparency, not elitism.

Public officials should declare their membership as a pecuniary interest, in the same way they declare free entry into a grand final this month.

But those outside the chairman’s lounge shouldn’t think they’ve missed out on too much.

Alan Joyce is not sitting there, telling everyone how good Qantas is. Judges are not sitting around asking for opinions on sentencing. And on a couple of occasions, journalists have been told to keep it down.

Soft power diplomacy is being waged over lunch tables across the nation today, and at people’s homes, over drinks at city pubs, through WhatsApp groups and on Teams or Zoom calls run from spare bedrooms.

Inside the chairman’s lounge there’s a lot less of that, and more paper reading, flight checking and coffee drinking.

Certainly it’s a reminder of how unfair life can be, or how the world rewards those with big jobs and bulging pockets. The rich get richer, the poor get the picture.

And it has blown up because, as Qantas has acknowledged, its service to the broader public has declined since COVID-19 – but its elite customers have been exempt.

Right now it needs them, so it’s doubtful whether it’s worth shedding the facilities that entice them.

But more on-time flights, fewer cancellations and more urgency in refunding unused flight credits is what it really needs.

That’s the golden doorway to redemption for the national carrier – and some free drinks for economy passengers might not hurt either.