UP,UP AND AWAY

Amidst all the political muscle-flexing and union sabre-rattling and emotional claptrap over the planned sale of Qantas ask yourself one question:  As a traveller – especially an international one – what benefits  do you actually  get from Qantas being Australian-owned?

Don’t talk about the cost of flying from Melbourne or Sydney to Los Angeles or New York. Because of Government protection Qantas has some of the most expensive tickets in the world on those routes. Singapore Airlines tried, yet again, to get the right to fly from Australia to the United States but the unholy, unhealthy, anti-competition deal between Qantas and Canberra held firm yet again.

And Qantas has been one of the last major airlines to reduce the fuel levy they slammed on domestic and international flights as oil prices have come down.

Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has ‘drawn a line in the sand’ over the sale as The Age puts it this morning.

Qantas must retain majority Australian ownership and must by under Australian control and must be Australian located. Think that through. If Qantas decided to move its headquarters to Los Angeles unless the Government paid them half a billion dollars…. would you, the taxpayer, be happy to prop up a public company for its shareholders’ profits?

And the Treasurer gets all tough-sounding about ownership and control. When the Ten Network and its rare licence was sold to the Canadians at CanWest they supposedly only owned 15% of it – but had a 56% ‘economic interest’. Which meant they got all the profits. As for Australian control the Canadian Mounties held the top jobs and the purse strings and did the hiring and firing. How much more control do you need than that?  Where was the vigilant Treasurer then.

On this one Prime Minister Howard, at odds with Costello, has got it right. As long as it is legal let market forces decide. You don’t hear Canberra protesting when people like Frank Lowy buy up shopping centres all over the world or Macquarie Bank scoop up everything it can find. Or former Aussie Rupert Murdoch create such a global media empire while claiming to be really based in Adelaide.

Qantas is a business. A business with wings. Nothing more. Nothing less. If its executives and shareholders want to sell that’s their business.

I don’t hear Mr. Costello offering to reimburse Qantas shareholders if the sale doesn’t go through and the stock plummets faster than a plane in trouble at 35,000 feet.

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007