Dialogue: Hey Blue, who screwed who?

By JIM EAGLES

During the past few weeks the furry little creatures who inhabit Australia have been engaging in an orgy of Kiwi-bashing over the sad saga of Ansett and Air New Zealand.

But all the leaping, shrieking and boomerang-waving going on across the Tasman does not disguise the fact that, if there is any cause for anger, it is the other way around.

Anyone who looks behind the clouds of rhetoric will see that, in reality, Australian chauvinism and incompetence have almost destroyed our national carrier.

You only have to turn over a few of the rocks on the transtasman aviation runway and see what embarrassing nasties crawl out.

Way back at the beginning of the journey, when Air NZ was privatised in 1989, pressure from the marsupial Government was a major factor in the decision to accept the bid from Qantas-BIL rather than a higher offer from British Airways. In other words, the ownership structure which has proved so disastrous for Air NZ was foisted on us by the Australians.

Next, in 1992, prime wombat Paul Keating allowed Qantas to take over Australian Airlines and in the process forgave $A700 million in debt. That gave Qantas a huge and unfair advantage over both its local rival, Ansett, and its regional rival, Air NZ.

Two years later the same politicians arbitrarily tore up the transtasman single-aviation-market agreement, specifically to block Air NZ from starting a cut-price main-trunk airline. That effectively forced Air NZ to buy into Ansett to access the Australian market.

Until Air NZ took full ownership last year, Ansett was managed by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. That was when - understandably, in view of Australia's absurd aviation policy - it got into trouble. As has become increasingly apparent, Air NZ's mistake was to buy such a lame-galah airline. It didn't cause it to fall.

Former Australian Financial Review editor Alan Kohler wrote last week: "The statement by News Corp that it handed Ansett over to full ownership by Air NZ in 1999 in good shape was simply untrue. Maintenance had been deferred to save money and financial systems were inadequate.

"I remember [Ansett CEO under News Corp Rod] Eddington telling me incredulously, soon after he took over, that the Ansett accounting department could not tell him whether the Sydney-to-Brisbane route was profitable. When Gary Toomey took over in February this year he told me much the same thing. The most basic financial systems were still missing."

That information makes Air NZ's failure to identify Ansett's problems, and the eventual collapse of the airline, rather more understandable. And, of course, it was all the work of those pecksniffian possums.

The final blow to Ansett probably came last Easter when Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority abruptly grounded the entire Ansett fleet. The Casa review subsequently found virtually no problems, but the damage to Ansett was enormous.

Then, in June, when the Air NZ board endorsed a proposal for Singapore Airlines to inject desperately needed capital, Qantas put forward a rival bid which was avidly promoted by the Australian Government. It had no chance of success, but, aided by the indecision of the New Zealand Government, created confusion and delayed the Singapore infusion until it was too late. The major beneficiaries? The cuddly koalas at Qantas.

Even after Ansett was put into receivership, assorted Australian fauna did their bit to make the problems worse.

The echidna (prickly relics of another age) at the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) - whose featherbedding policies are at least partly responsible for the aviation crisis - hindered Air NZ operations, bad-mouthed Air NZ, made all sorts of wild allegations and even talked of boycotts. The ACTU has since adopted a more rational approach, but the damage was done.

Ansett's administrator, Mark Mentha, made headlines by saying he was shocked at the state of the airline's books. More recently he apologised for the comment, but that attracted rather less attention.

The galahs in the Australian Parliament joined in with a cackle of claims, including bizarre talk of Air NZ having asset-stripped Ansett. Mr Mentha has since ruled that out as well, but, again, it was a bit late.

Add to all that the fact that a worldwide fall in passenger numbers meant just about every airline in the world was running into problems, even before the September 11 terrorism, and it is hardly surprising that Air NZ hit turbulent conditions.

Of course, that hasn't stopped the dingoes in the Australian media having great fun yowling about Ansett's collapse being due to the general incompetence of New Zealand managements.

But they seem to have forgotten that Ansett has always had an Australian management, that Air NZ's senior management is largely Australian and that there have been three Australian directors on the Air NZ board.

And they have somehow overlooked the reality that the failure of Ansett is actually small fry compared with the string of Australian businesses which have collapsed in recent times.

So who killed Ansett? Who brought Air NZ down? Who is responsible for weakening the transtasman economy and undermining the legendary Anzac relationship? The responsibility must surely lie with those whingeing wallabies across the Tasman.

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