Recce

Mind you, a major brake to all this is the almost nil progress to date on streamlining the presently restrictive Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) requirements that still demand that travellers between the two nations fly as international passengers. To most people this spells time wasted, extra cost and inconvenience. Until the CIQ problem is resolved the Tasman will remain the great divide of regional air transport. Australia’s abrogation of the previous agreed One Nation policy is pathetic. What more can you say. As an Australian I would like to apologise to our New Zealand readers for the way in which our Government has treated them in this farce. And I say farce not lightly because the decision has been made solely to help prop up the sale price of Qantas next year when it finally goes to market.

Okay, sure, Air New Zealand wasn’t really about to begin domestic operations come November 1 but at least they deserved the right to believe they could when the word of a trusted allied government had given them no previous reason to believe otherwise. What good is Australia’s word on anything when it can be overturned at the whim of a single Minister? This is something that every Australian should feel ashamed and enraged about and every New Zealander indignant of. What the Keating government and Laurie Brereton are seeking to do is to actually force Air New Zealand to do something that it probably should have done (if it sincerely was interested in entering the Australian domestic market) two years ago, and that is to simply buy into or form a water tight marketing allegiance with Ansett. Almost two years ago in our March ’93 Reece we argued the sensibilities of this and whilst it did not come to pass it did at least appear to make the situation more of a topic of discussion.

An Ansett 737 is shadowed by a Qantas 747 at KSA. An intimately linked Air New Zealand/Ansett Australia would indeed be a real challenge for the Flying Kangaroo – but don’t expect anything like this to happen till well after the float! (John Ruming) Deals of this magnitude are mostly worked out at the highest levels and often for what historically are reasons that sometimes include arrangements of a particularly different nature to the physical transaction involved. To this end if, for instance, ANZ did pick up News Ltd’s Ansett share then there might well be sweeteners involved that go far beyond the buying and selling of a mere airline shareholding. Watch this space.

If ANZ did own half of Ansett then the synergies are almost unlimited, particularly if the thorny CIQ issues can be resolved in the coming year or so to everybodys benefit. One would imagine that Qantas would quickly drop its 19.9% shareholding in ANZ (ironically only acquired in the first place to keep British Airways at bay) and this would probably be acquired by ANZ majority shareholder, Ron Brierley. One would also imagine the perennially loss making Ansett New Zealand would be merged into ANZ’s domestic operations as part of an agreement not to have blue and green 737s cruising Australia’s most lucrative inter capital routes.

Certainly if anything has been proven this past half decade it is simply that anything is possible and more than likely probable in this weird and wonderful world we call aviation. We don’t honestly know what will eventuate in this situation except to say that once more, from the aviation industry’s point of view, Minister Brereton has left us all gasping at the breadth of change he is capable of making at a moments notice without, it seems, scant regard for whether that decision is right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate. If he keeps this up he may well be eligible for a try at running for leader of the Opposition!