Opinions divided on the state of Tonga

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Ivana stopped using Royal Tongan Airlines' international service after the Tongan Government passed laws gagging the press late last year.

The New Zealand-born 20-something was so annoyed at the move - as were many back in Tonga - that she decided to stage a personal boycott. These days, her five or so annual trips to the archipelago are by Air New Zealand.

Ditching the Tongan Government-owned RTA is no great sacrifice, and cultural pride doesn't even come into it, says Ivana, who prefers not to give her surname.

RTA, she says, offered poor service - and more "island time" than she could stand. "If the princess [Pilolevu Tuita] was coming on the flight and she was late, everybody else sitting in the plane had to wait.

"If it was anybody else, they wouldn't wait . . ," she said.

Monday is a good day to loiter at Otahuhu's Funaki Superette (top sellers: lamb flaps, tapioca, taro). Many are coming in for Te Taimi o Tonga, which comes out twice a week here, but is banned in Tonga.

The airline crash is the big story; 75 per cent of its passengers were Tongan and it was the third failed attempt to offer international flights.

Views on the collapse are diverse. There is no consensus - except that no one believed the Government's initial claim that technical problems grounded the service's only plane, a leased Boeing 757. It was repossessed by its Brunei owners on Friday.

Ha'angana Mafileo, who works in an office at the back of the dairy, says the collapse is "a sad thing. Most people like using their national airline".

Who should pay off the creditors baying for their millions? The Government, he reckons.

Ask people whether the wealthy and controversial Tongan royal family should pay up - RTA's international services were a pet project forced through by the King, despite Parliament and Cabinet opposition - and the Tongan Kiwis are quick to concur.

David, who has lived in New Zealand for 33 years, says it is the family's "duty" to pay up.

Teki Fifita, who serves behind the counter, adds: "I blame the whole royal family for everything that's going on in Tonga.

"They are against [ordinary] Tongans, not with them."

There are plenty of people, however, who are reluctant to put the Government, the royal family and RTA in the same sentence, let alone criticise it.