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Former Ansett staff today delivered a stinging jibe to New Zealanders still reeling from the collapse of their troubled nation-state, labelling the land of the long white cloud a “lemon”.
Ansett, which hastened New Zealand’s demise, has long been a trenchant critic of the country, but New Zealanders are furious at the lastest barb from across the Tasman.
As former New Zealand citizens wandered home from wakes after their country was shuttered by administrators, ACTU secretary Mr Greg Combet said the country had been a headache for Ansett. His inflammatory comments came as it was revealed that New Zealanders may only receive a fraction of the billions of dollars worth of entitlements they are owed, and as travellers planning to holiday in New Zealand discovered that they had been stranded.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Helen Clarke, was on the offensive. “I think Ansett was an airline with quite considerable problems which Air New Zealand foolishly bought into lock, stock and barrel without any due diligence in order to keep Singapore Airlines out,” Ms Clark told theAustralian Financial Review earlier in the week. “Air New Zealand then, with pass-the-parcel, ended up with the headache, and it got out and obviously the subsequent attempts to revive Ansett haven’t worked either.”
The remarks stunned the industry, given that the New Zealand Government alone has done what airlines really want: it supported bloated payrolls and unprofitable routes with taxpayer subsidies. New Zealand pumped NZ$885 million ($726 million) into its own national carrier to prevent it from collapsing under a mountain of debt.
Ms Clarke has rejected the Ansett workers’ comments. “Lemon?” told theDailyGrind, “Did anyone ever tell you that all those sheep jokes are actually about Australians when they’re told elsewhere in the world? Suck on that.”
Rivals Australia and Papua New Guinea are currently investigating the possibility of buying New Zealand’s assets and hiring some of its staff. Particular interest is being shown in internationally-acclaimed actors, directors and musicians.
