Anti-Asian racism why Ansett folded: unionist

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

A top Australian unionist yesterday apologised to his New Zealand comrades for flak hurled their way by distraught Ansett workers, and blamed that airline's collapse on anti-Asian racism.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions assistant secretary, Richard Marles, also accused his country's ruling party of making a "100 per cent pitch to the racist vote" over the refugee crisis.

He told the CTU biennial conference in Wellington that the Australian Government was culpable in the events leading to Ansett's grounding, particularly by snubbing Singapore Airlines' proposed rescue package.

Foreign domination of Australian skies was obviously not the problem, despite being cited as such by his Government, he said. Ansett was fully owned by Air New Zealand, and British Airways held 25 per cent of Qantas.

"What the Government really did not want was Asian domination of Australian skies."

He even believed the Australian Government wanted to ground Ansett, to deal it a rapid death in the hope Australian voters would have forgotten about it by election day on November 10.

Mr Marles apologised for "out of control" anger by Ansett staff, which he said was meant to have been directed at Air New Zealand's management, not its workers and unions.

In contrast to the Australian Government's behaviour, the role played by New Zealand in partly resurrecting Ansett had been nothing but positive, he said.

This included the New Zealand Government's $A150 million ($183 million) contribution to the airline's creditors and workers.

"On behalf of the Australian union movement, I give you my heartfelt thanks for what you have done and we stand in solidarity with the Air New Zealand workers who face troubled times."

Mr Marles, who as an environmental lawyer in the early 1990s helped to win hundreds of millions of dollars for Papua New Guinean farmers from the Australian owners of the Ok Tedi precious metals mine, condemned what he saw as the exploitation of racism in his country's election campaign.

The differing attitudes of the New Zealand and Australian Governments towards the refugee crisis at Christmas Island could not have been more stark, he said.

Calling the refugee standoff one of the saddest and most disturbing episodes in his country's political history, he accused Australian Prime Minister John Howard of exploiting racism for electoral ends with an impending general election.

CTU vice-president Darien Fenton heaped praise on Prime Minister Helen Clark for "standing for decency" over the refugee issue, in contrast to Mr Howard.

Darien Fenton, also secretary of the Service and Food Workers' Union, also thanked the Government for stepping in to save Air New Zealand and the jobs of thousands of its workers.

The Prime Minister told the conference she made no apology for standing up for the airline, because of its vital economic and social importance to New Zealand.

But she said its shareholders' enthusiasm for taking profits from it in good times and reluctance to invest money during adversity was a classic example of people "privatising their gains and socialising their losses".

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