A win for competition

The High Court has rejected the Air NZ – Qantas merger, which is a great win for competition.

Against the merger had been almost every consumer and industry group, plus the Commerce Commissions in NZ and Australia. The only one in favour, apart from the airlines who wanted monopoly profits, was Dr Cullen it seems.

This is a great example of why Government should not own commercial competitive businesses. As the owner of Air NZ, the Labour Government just wanted to make lots of money and hence supported the merger. If it did not own Air NZ, it would of course never have supported a merger. In fact the reason Air NZ almost went broke is because the Government spent months blocking overseas airlines from buying into Air NZ.