New Year Honours: Ralph Norris a crucial leader in a crisis

Ralph Norris with his wife Pam. Picture / Kenny Rodger

As a one-time chairman of the Business Roundtable, Ralph Norris was genuinely surprised to make the New Year Honours under the present political regime.

In 2000, with Labour freshly ensconced in power, the Prime Minister held a high-profile meeting of 85 business leaders - from which Norris was pointedly excluded.

Helen Clark said at the time that the invitation list included only those with something constructive to say. "I haven't detected much constructive from Mr Norris," she said.

Yesterday, from his North Auckland beach house, Norris said: "I think that accentuated my surprise [in being honoured]."

Of course, the former ASB Bank and Air New Zealand chief executive went on to prove to be more than slightly helpful to the Government when it came to rescuing the national airline.

His leadership of Air NZ at a time when it was headed for a spectacular failure is almost certainly the main reason he has been honoured as a distinguished companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

Not exactly comfortable being dubbed "the man who saved Air NZ", Norris does count the job he did for the airline as one of his most satisfying experiences.

"These things are never the achievement of one individual. It's an individual being part of a team," he said with the grace of a good All Black captain.

Things were grimmer than grim for Air NZ when he took over in February 2002.

The company was on the brink of bankruptcy after its disastrous acquisition of Ansett Australia. Air NZ had already reported a loss of $1.4 billion for the June 2001 year and had been bailed out by the Crown to the tune of nearly $900 million.

But its balance sheet was still weak and, less than three weeks after Norris started, the airline reported a loss of $377 million for the six months to December 2001.

"There was a realisation at the time that unless we got our strategy sorted out and got ourselves into a position where we could compete with Qantas domestically - and also the threat of entry of Virgin Blue - then it's quite possible that Air NZ would have failed, even with the injection of Government funds."

Norris describes his job as one of setting the strategy. But he admits he was well aware that the quality of the execution was going to count.

"It was going to be a determining factor and it's everybody on the team that makes the execution a success."

In some respects, Air NZ is still struggling. Before Christmas, it announced a major restructuring programme and a round of redundancies.

But Norris said at least the airline's problems were not of its own making these days.

Problems such as high fuel prices were the same problems afflicting all airlines.

"But it has a much stronger balance sheet than most of the airlines in the world, it has a good level of cash."

Norris has received his honour for services to business. So, he doesn't want to see his work at ASB overshadowed by Air NZ.

"I don't think many people realise how much it's grown," he said

"If you look at the size of ASB in 1990 compared with what it is today, it's about six times bigger."

Norris - who now lives in Sydney and is chief executive of ASB's parent company, Commonwealth Bank of Australia - was determined to ensure that his wife, Pam, got some credit for his achievements over the years.

"Jobs like ones I have, you really rely on strong support from your family and, particularly, your wife," he said.

"Without her support it would have been a lot more difficult."

Norris hasn't had much time to settle into his Australian lifestyle yet as he has spent a whirlwind three months getting up to speed with the business at CBA.

He has noticed a tougher business culture in Australia, as he had expected.

"It's a big economy, there are a lot of major players and competition is fierce.

"But I am surprised how many Kiwis I run into. There are a lot of Kiwis in senior management positions in Australia."