KEY POINTS:
Air New Zealand needs to make up its mind about what is commercially sensitive and what isn't.
The company has complained in a letter to Helen Clark that information it gave confidentially to the Government about a charter flight of Australian troops to Honiara was then used politically, Fran
O'Sullivan writes in today's Herald.
Palmer doesn't actually point the finger at Clark in the letter, but it was her, in the midst of the outcry last month over revelations the airline had carried Iraq-bound Australian troops to the Middle East.
Clark noted that the day after Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer had said they wouldn't use Air New Zealand again, it had taken a charter flight to Honiara.
Using the information politically is one thing, and worth debating, but suggesting that the flight to Honiara was confidential information is ridiculous.
Especially when it is inconsistent with Air New Zealand's own statements during the charter flights debacle.
"These charter flights were never a secret," chief executive Rob Fyfe said in a message to staff.
"They have been profiled in News News, referred to in an Australian Aviation magazine and there was even an Australian film crew on one."
I'm sure the dozens of civilians in Australian and Honiara who saw a 50-tonne plane leave and arrive did not regard it as a confidential flight either.
What Clark said about the flight is another matter. It appears from Fran's story that Clark scoffing at Downer (on Monday August 20) riled Downer so much that the ban on Air New Zealand carrying troops (which he described on August 16) was broadened.
Now all new tenders for any ADF work submitted by Air New Zealand, including its extensive engineering contracts, will have to be submitted to ADF's head of procurement.
Air New Zealand acknowledges that it cannot operate commercially outside foreign policy considerations of its main shareholder, the New Zealand Government.
Likewise the Government and Clark cannot expect that its statements won't have commercial consequences.
Perhaps Air New Zealand believes that criticising the New Zealand Government over its political use of the information can do its relationship with ADF no harm.
There is no doubt that Australia took offence over Clark and Goff's and Cullen's anger over the flights and chose to see take it as a criticism of themselves instead of Air New Zealand or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
But Australia seems to be relishing the opportunity to take offence. If there is any over-reaction, is it that.
