KEY POINTS:
Here is the latest selection of Your Views:
Graeme Roberts
Some of your contributors on this issue of Auckland Airport ownership need to be more informed about Dubai before showing their ignorance and misguided paranoia. Kiwi isolationist thinking is still alive and well.Dubai is not some sleepy
JW
Well, what can we say? NZ authorities are just so so incapable. What a shame to all NZers! Why are we having such useless government in place? They really don't have any sense of priority, do they? Let's put it this way, if our own people can't manage what we have, it makes perfectly sense that others have to come in to do the jobs of the incompetents! Fellow NZers, we are sinking and soon we shall vanish! Pity.
Christian Chia (AKL)
I believe that any foreign ownership is negative. Let the majority of shareholders of AKL airport be New Zealanders.Foreigners who buy into assets of some country only have one aim in mind i.e. making as much money as possible.So if AKL airport is sold to Dubai, then New Zealanders will have no say in how the airport is run. They will be up to the mercies of these foreigners.
Gisborne
In a word, No.
George Patrick
Hell No. The sale of Akld Airport to foreign investment is corrupt.. to cut it short. Anyone who supports this takeover are not true Kiwis. To think we are going to live in this country when this country doesn't even own state assets? Forget it. I absolutely support the: Rt Hon Winston Peters on this matter.
Kaos(Ponsonby)
Split into two.
Sell the shares in the business and keep all land shares in NZ Land Ownership Body.
Daniel King
Don't stop the sale, bring in powerful anti-monopoloies legislation. This would target the rank profiteering of giant companies, Telecom, airports, power companies etc and limit what they can do or charge. Capitalism works well with competition, but all these giant companies buy up the competition to eliminate competition - and that's when it breaks down. That's when the consumer gets nailed. Auckland Airport would be first in line for this, well, second actually behind Telecom.
Duncan (Wellington)
I really can't believe how ignorant some people can be. Getting patriotic over a private business, that you have no real interest in, is pathetic.Dubai Aerospace have loads of cash and will use it to improve the embarrassment that is Auckland Airport."Kiwi profits should stay in NZ"? What a bore.
Anna
No - Let's keep Auckland International Airport for ourselves! Surely we have the people to manage this airport for the people of N.Z.
SS (Grafton)
No to selling Auckland airport.
Debs
Let's all get patriotic and stomp our collective feet..No! Or we could think strategically how the sale may benefit our country in business outcomes. We should this issue be thinking through carefully.
Ian (Papamoa)
Do we never learn? Previous sales of our strategic assets have resulted in a drain on our overseas earnings and our prosperity as a nation. Overseas interests buy into NZ for one reason only - to make money from us. It is very unlikely that future profits from the operation of the airport would remain in NZ, hence a further drain on our overall prosperity.
Gary Stewart (Waitakere City)
No!
Mike (Auckland)
I've been to airports on five continents - including, as it happens, the one in Dubai - and I'm here to tell you that, from the ordinary traveller's point of view, Auckland is one of the best I've seen. Where else can you get free coffee while you're waiting for your luggage off the carousel? That's a terrific boon to the sleepy traveller who's in no mood to start playing with a new currency.What worries me is the idea of anyone - foreign or domestic - running the airport as a cash cow. If the airport expands and degrades into something like, say, Gatwick, or Sydney, or (God forbid) LAX, then the already-gruelling long-distance journey to NZ will be made far, far, far worse.
Sheriff
Never a good idea.Coz NZ should as far as possible try to keep a distinct identity . It should not be so commercial.
Paul Keohane
No way should we surrender control of AIA to any overseas interest. This is typical short term NZ thinking of instant gain rather than hold for the future long term gains. Apart from this we should not allow foreign control of a strategic asset such as Auckland's airport.
Stuart Young
Yes sell the airport while it is still worth something. In 5 years, once Peak Oil starts to really bite and world air travel crashes the shares will be worthless - let some other fool get caught owning them.
Hedrik (Auckland)
Having a foreign company buy a minority stakehold is a non-issue, but having a foreign company controlling a majority stakehold in a countries main hub/airport raise eye browse. They will have total control in monopolising NZ's main gateway to gain maximum profits and control systems/ methodologies of operations. It will not be about best interest for New Zealand, but best interest for foreign gain. First it was the American cup boat promoting "Fly Emirates", now the main airport will greet you with a "Fly Emirates" banner, modern colonialisation or rather globalisation is the other way of describing this. Can't but wonder whether this is the second step to quite a lot more to come, slowly but surely. Same happening in several other countries at the moment, having to block majority stake holding to keep control. New Zealand still is the greener pasture and not a desert. Is OK if NZ keeps control of itself even with the flow of immigrants, but selling control out now, wonder what's next and the joke is, it will be too little to late to stop the snowball. This also open NZ to high risk associated with Middle East currently, not an investment worth the risk I would say.
Sensible_thinker
If a foreign investtor wants to invest in Auckland Airport and it is going to lift the character of the place then they should be more than welcome to do so. Dubai companies work on a very standard and leave no expense spared when it comes to doing it well. Shareholders will benefit out of it if they make Auckland Airport one like Dubai International.New Zealand needs foreign investment and it's time New Zealanders see themselves competing globally with their true kiwi quality rather than between themselves.
Good Riddance
At the moment we have a monopoly Airport service provider in Auckland and we are paying monopoly rates for its services. This situation is never good for NZ consumers nor travellers. If the price is right, it is the shareholders decision to sell or retain. A partial or complete sale of one or two of the councils majority interests would pave the way for a second Airport (e.g. Whenuapai) to be built. At the moment both councils have a vested interest in retaining the present monopoly. Wouldn't it be great to see real competition in this market!
Steve (Auck)
I say - sell the airport to the gullible, vain, got-too-much-cash-to-burn Arabs at a ridiculously inflated price, and use the proceeds to build a competing airport somewhere north of the CBD (Whenuapai or elsewhere). That's the Middle-Eastern way, that's what they'd do to us if they had a chance to! Besides, with two competing airports the air travel costs for us ordinary mortals will go down... I say - say the airport to the gullible, vain, got-too-much-cash-to-burn Arabs at a ridiculously inflated price, and use the proceeds to build a competing airport somewhere north of the CBD (Whenuapai or elsewhere). That's the Middle-Eastern way, that's what they'd do to us if they had a chance to! Besides, with two competing airports the air travel costs for us ordinary mortals will go down.
Jerry Flay
What if this Dubai outfit is a secret front for Al Quaeda, and their plan is to buy infrastructure all over the world and insert agents wherever they can to gain control and turn us into a terrorist base? Or perhaps it is actually owned by the CIA? Honestly people, get real. It's a shareholder decision, not a national debate, nor is it a nationally owned asset.
Opa
A little too late maybe, seems a lot of NZ has already been sold to overseas owners why not the airport?
No way
As a born and bred NZer, I am totally opposed to foreign ownership of any part of NZ - especially the countries' main airport. NZ should be for NZers - others are free to come here and live here, but as for owning a slice of NZ? Forget it.
Peter Miller (Wellington)
Dubai taking over Auckland International Airport? Sounds like a re-run of Fay and Richwhite buying NZ Rail. We have learnt from that. Let us apply our learning now. Let's start by rubbishing John Banks.
JR (Wellington)
The sale (or partial sale) of NZ infrastructure assets is just plain stupid and surely Auckland Airport is such an asset. This was an economic idea from a past Labour Government in order to make a quick buck. Unfortunately it has been carried on ever since by both major political parties, with absolutely no consideration to the long term future. There are plenty of good examples - try Telecom, NZ Rail or even those SOEs who now must make and transfer their huge profits back to the Government - while investing nothing back into the future of their business.
Here is the latest selection of Your Views:
Adam
This is a private company wanting to buy from another private company. My suggestion to those who people oppose this deal are to examine the facts and ponder these questions. Have the existing owners benefited travelling New Zealanders and visitors? What has been your experience of waiting for visitors through AIA? Do you agree with current flight levies? Is the deal going to make ANY difference to so called strategic assets, given it is simply a change of private ownership? The answers to the above should lead most people to the conclusion to sell.
Jerry (Christchurch)
Remember what has happened since we refused to sell Air NZ to Singapore Airlines some years ago. Now Air NZ is losing so much money that no one wants it now. Sell it when the price is right!
Mieke (Paihia)
As a New Zealand resident I am totally opposed to the sale of Auckland airport into foreign ownership.It is our main airport and of vital strategic and economic importance.Will this country persist in flogging the family silver and regretting it later?
Ray
Hello, it's not a national treasure, it's an airport. Another could be built to compete with it if desired, if not tomorrow, certainly within a few years (perhaps in the Whenuapai area, for example)I'm curious as to why 75 per cent approval is required for what is essentially a 60 per cent, at most, controlling interest. ACC and MCC should part-sell down their holding to make it happen.
Adam
Auckland Airport is key to New Zealand's infrastructure and should be protected from a large foreign interest taking it over. The only ones who will pay for the takeover, will be the people who use the airport. How much and who gets what would be interesting, but then again most deals like this one never get fully disclosed - do they.
Pat Courtenay (Auckland)
Any transaction that's been concluded with Dubai over the sale of Auckland Airport will have been an enormously protracted and detailed affair, because that's the way one must negotiate with the hugely successful Gulf Arabs. This news has only just broken and we have no idea what benefits to New Zealand and to our New Zealand workers have or haven't been negotiated.Shareholders should hold their shares and panickers should hold their tongues until they know more. If it turns out that New Zealanders are going to lose revenue and/or rights because one of our companies is bought by one of the world's most prosperous nations, then react to the move. Anyone who has ever been lucky enough to visit Dubai will know that it is an astonishingly well-run nation (run like a company in fact) with a sensible tolerance of the "habits" of its foreign visitors, an equally sensible intolerance of extremism among its own nationals and a far-sighted economic view unimaginable in New Zealand. At least if Dubai invests in New Zealand, we'll know its money-management credentials are of the very highest pedigree. We might even learn a trick or two.
Roger Hey
I am totally opposed to any sale of Akld airport to overseas interests. NZ'ers will come to regret such a move.
Christine former shareholder
No way do we want a bunch of people from Dubai controlling our major airport. Ever been to the websites and checked out that place? I have. It's weird and wild. Take a look yourself at the kind of people who would live there and use our airport to fund their desalination plants.
rational
This is about making money, it's not some insidious plan to gain control and unleash some evil ploy. Get real people! This is investing, if the price is right then why not accept the bid and employ the capital to some other potentially more useful end?The views of the various political figures are simply disappointing and extremely parochial and xenophobic. New Zealand needs to encourage and embrace international commerce, we're too small - and the gains to be had are too compelling to be stymied by little thoughts such as self-reliance and 'control'.
Buy NZ made
I have grave concerns re any foreign ownership,especially one so pivotal and crucial as the Akl Airport.Dubai holdings tried to buy a stake in the USA Ports but were blocked due to security reasons,I think that we need,as a country,to do the same.Especially by the Arabs,a middle eastern country with so many links to terrorists and the Al Qaeda networks.We cannot allow this sale to proceed,surely the Airport is better left in the hands of NZers,Put safety and security above all else,above greedy profiteers and money. God defend NZ. God, save us. May be a phrase we may hope to never hear in the future!
Tom Duncan
The arguments against the sale of Auckland Airport at face value seem to be so simplistic it is a wonder they even need to be made. Yet once again NZ faces the risk of losing another high quality asset to foreign owners. A quick look back at recent history would show that such sales have been nothing short of a disaster in terms a transfer of wealth offshore.Has anyone who supports this sale, especially the Board who have recommended it, actually asked why a Dubai based company would look seriously at a potential asset as far away as NZ? The answer is simply that they see it as great strategic investment - they are hardly likely to go to the effort if it was anything other than this. With this in mind, the next question is why would anyone want to sell a great strategic investment to foreign owners? The answer is a mystery to many New Zealanders - but for some reason not to the Board or Auckland Airport.It is good to see Winston Peters and Sir Barry Curtis campaigning against this sale - it can only be hoped that they triumph over this type of short sightedness that has plagued NZ for decades. If a sale is the best thing for the shareholders then surely a better option would be for the NZ Super Fund to take a stake in such a key national asset.
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