Dr BURNS - 2001-10-17
Can the minister advise the Assembly of measures taken by the government to overcome the collapse of Ansett?
ANSWER
I thank the member for Johnston for his question, Madam Speaker. This collapse of Ansett occurred in the early hours of Friday, 14 September. I think at about 3.30 am they made that announcement. It came, of course, following the Tuesday horrific terrorist attacks on both New York and Washington.
I certainly felt the pinch immediately, as Minister for Tourism, because we saw, right from the beginning of that Friday, the loss in the first place with 147 Ansett staff here in the Northern Territory simply stood down. Some of the ways these stand-downs were handled by this company was simply abysmal. Ansett staff required to overnight away from their home locations were delivered notices under their door by hotel staff. I think that is unforgivable for an Australian company to treat their staff in that fashion. Other staff returning to home base late at night or in the early hours of the morning were told by baggage handlers as they came off that plane: ‘That is the last time you will get back on that plane’. Again, an unforgivable way for an Australian company to advise its long-serving and loyal employees that not only had they lost their job that morning, it was unlikely that they would be getting it back. Along with the 147 Territory staff immediately stood down, we lost about 43% of our interstate airline capacity.
Early that morning, this government formed an Aviation Task Force consisting of senior officials from Transport and Works, Chief Minister’s, Department of Industries and Business, and Tourism. The immediate charter for that group was to pick up the blockages where people and freight were stuck and could not get out, and get that moving. That certainly took a lot of focus over those first few days.
They then looked to the analysis of what the capacity that was being utilised into the Territory, based on last year, and what we needed to get back to reasonably cover the Territory’s needs in the weeks ahead. Of course, one of the difficulties was the collapse in the numbers of people travelling. Just in the case of - if we take a look at America alone, because we can all appreciate that the United States is entering a period of insularity, and no one can blame them for that. They were responsible, North Americans, for some 14% of our international visitation to the Northern Territory, and with the strength of the US dollar considerably more, in the impact overall of some $900m that flowed to the Territory economy last financial year through tourism.
When we look at last year’s traffic figures, they can only give a really rough guide in terms of what the need will be in the future. It has been difficult getting the certainty back in to the scheduling, certain enough to allow the public to have the comfort to know that not only are they going to get to their destination, they are going to be able to get back whence they came, when they want to.
Air freight capacity was similarly affected, particularly perishable produce. Australian Air Express now advise that all freight is cleared within that 12- to 24-hour period. The government also moved to work with the federal government because of the cabotage restrictions on Royal Brunei and Malaysia Airlines, to enable them to pick up domestic passengers and cargo through Darwin enroute to Cairns and Brisbane, to take some of the pressure off where seats were short. Whilst we put that pressure on early - and our predecessors certainly tried many times with the federal government to get that lifted - even given the situation with the collapse of Ansett, it still took a considerable amount of time for the federal government to lift those cabotage requirements and allow those foreign carriers to pick up domestic passengers. Even then, they gave us, initially, a few weeks which they later extended to 31 December, even though it was obviously required.
In relation to Groote Eylandt which lost its service overnight as well, this government, in conjunction with the federal government, facilitated Air North within a couple of days. More recently, we have looked at the Gove situation and assisted Air North to pick up a Brazilia and run a Cairns, Gove, Darwin, Broome route, four days a week initially. I would expect that if that is well utilised and used favourably, that that could move to a daily service.
The only other point in that was our approach to the administrator of Ansett: given that we had Ansett staff still without jobs, was it possible to get Ansett planes flying through the Northern Territory to pick up those people and get them back in work - on a similar basis to the package that was developed and agreed to with Virgin. It was flatly rejected by the Ansett administrator.
We will continue to work with all airlines, all approaches, all options, we are open. As they come across the desk we will try to tick them off, bearing in mind we have a busy period coming up with the Christmas flights and, of course, bringing people back to employment.
ANSWER
I thank the member for Johnston for his question, Madam Speaker. This collapse of Ansett occurred in the early hours of Friday, 14 September. I think at about 3.30 am they made that announcement. It came, of course, following the Tuesday horrific terrorist attacks on both New York and Washington.
I certainly felt the pinch immediately, as Minister for Tourism, because we saw, right from the beginning of that Friday, the loss in the first place with 147 Ansett staff here in the Northern Territory simply stood down. Some of the ways these stand-downs were handled by this company was simply abysmal. Ansett staff required to overnight away from their home locations were delivered notices under their door by hotel staff. I think that is unforgivable for an Australian company to treat their staff in that fashion. Other staff returning to home base late at night or in the early hours of the morning were told by baggage handlers as they came off that plane: ‘That is the last time you will get back on that plane’. Again, an unforgivable way for an Australian company to advise its long-serving and loyal employees that not only had they lost their job that morning, it was unlikely that they would be getting it back. Along with the 147 Territory staff immediately stood down, we lost about 43% of our interstate airline capacity.
Early that morning, this government formed an Aviation Task Force consisting of senior officials from Transport and Works, Chief Minister’s, Department of Industries and Business, and Tourism. The immediate charter for that group was to pick up the blockages where people and freight were stuck and could not get out, and get that moving. That certainly took a lot of focus over those first few days.
They then looked to the analysis of what the capacity that was being utilised into the Territory, based on last year, and what we needed to get back to reasonably cover the Territory’s needs in the weeks ahead. Of course, one of the difficulties was the collapse in the numbers of people travelling. Just in the case of - if we take a look at America alone, because we can all appreciate that the United States is entering a period of insularity, and no one can blame them for that. They were responsible, North Americans, for some 14% of our international visitation to the Northern Territory, and with the strength of the US dollar considerably more, in the impact overall of some $900m that flowed to the Territory economy last financial year through tourism.
When we look at last year’s traffic figures, they can only give a really rough guide in terms of what the need will be in the future. It has been difficult getting the certainty back in to the scheduling, certain enough to allow the public to have the comfort to know that not only are they going to get to their destination, they are going to be able to get back whence they came, when they want to.
Air freight capacity was similarly affected, particularly perishable produce. Australian Air Express now advise that all freight is cleared within that 12- to 24-hour period. The government also moved to work with the federal government because of the cabotage restrictions on Royal Brunei and Malaysia Airlines, to enable them to pick up domestic passengers and cargo through Darwin enroute to Cairns and Brisbane, to take some of the pressure off where seats were short. Whilst we put that pressure on early - and our predecessors certainly tried many times with the federal government to get that lifted - even given the situation with the collapse of Ansett, it still took a considerable amount of time for the federal government to lift those cabotage requirements and allow those foreign carriers to pick up domestic passengers. Even then, they gave us, initially, a few weeks which they later extended to 31 December, even though it was obviously required.
In relation to Groote Eylandt which lost its service overnight as well, this government, in conjunction with the federal government, facilitated Air North within a couple of days. More recently, we have looked at the Gove situation and assisted Air North to pick up a Brazilia and run a Cairns, Gove, Darwin, Broome route, four days a week initially. I would expect that if that is well utilised and used favourably, that that could move to a daily service.
The only other point in that was our approach to the administrator of Ansett: given that we had Ansett staff still without jobs, was it possible to get Ansett planes flying through the Northern Territory to pick up those people and get them back in work - on a similar basis to the package that was developed and agreed to with Virgin. It was flatly rejected by the Ansett administrator.
We will continue to work with all airlines, all approaches, all options, we are open. As they come across the desk we will try to tick them off, bearing in mind we have a busy period coming up with the Christmas flights and, of course, bringing people back to employment.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016