Fair-dinkum Max holds court

Max Cryer's years of teaching and television work made him quite at home in front of a court audience yesterday. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

Language expert Max Cryer breathed new life into the Commerce Commission's case against Air New Zealand yesterday.

After an afternoon of lawyers arguing over every word, Mr Cryer used his encyclopaedic knowledge of English, his plummy accent and years of controlling classes at Auckland Girls Grammar to bring clarity to the meaning of the words "levy" and "fair dinkum".

He was called as a witness by the commission to offer his thoughts on what the words meant to the public.

They are at the heart of a case taken by the commission against Air New Zealand, which is accused of breaching the Fair Trading Act in hundreds of its advertisements by not properly stating the true cost of air travel.

Mr Cryer strode into Courtroom 13, immaculate in his dark suit, silvery hair swept back, and in the authoritative voice familiar from his slot on National Radio's Saturday Morning with Kim Hill, introduced himself as a masters honours scholar in English language and literature, former presenter of University Challenge and writer of questions for Mastermind.

His brief of evidence was clear: "Within New Zealand 'dinkum' has meant serious, reliable and true since 1895," he said. Moreover, when the word "fair" is used in front, it becomes "an intensifier", clarifying, intensifying and making the word - in this case dinkum - even more believable.

It was when he was cross-examined on the use of the word "levy" that Mr Cryer pulled rank in the language stakes.

"You will recall that I said a levy is defined as to raise contributions," he said, his tone becoming a tad touchy.

"My role is to define how the public perceives words. In my opinion, the word levy has a slightly mysterious feel about it ... we are here speaking about a general concept, namely public perceptions."

By the end of play, Mr Cryer was in full pontificating flight.

"Why an airline is allowed to pass it [a levy] on to the consumer singly, one at a time, seems very unusual," he said, in that imperious tone that can shut down a discussion.

The argument has been making its way through the court system for three years and is set to exercise the minds of four expert commercial lawyers in the coming week.

The airline faces 20 counts of breaching the Fair Trading Act, relating to 18 different newspaper advertisements.

One double-page advertisement shown to the court had the words "Fare Dinkum" underneath a $189 price with an asterisk. A later page showed extra charges to the $189 fare.

Advertisements like this have been provided by commission lawyers to Judge Stan Thorburn in a large folder.

They are also projecting the ads on a screen in the courtroom, more than once saying how difficult it is to read the "fine print", even when it is blown up.

Commission lawyer Todd Simmonds said Air New Zealand had made representations that air travel "could be purchased at the advertised headline prices".

Those representations were false or misleading.

One charge relates to an advertisement showing a fare of $529 a person between Wellington and either Sydney or Melbourne.

"That's false," said Mr Simmonds. "It is and was not available - you couldn't fly at that time for that price - so it's false."

If convicted, Air NZ is liable for a fine of up to $100,000 for most of the charges, and $200,000 for 126 charges relating to advertisements that ran after July 2003, when the maximum fines were raised. The case is expected to run for a further two days.