Cullen rules out airline jobs help

Union leaders Andrew Little (right) and George Ryde emerge from the Beehive empty-handed. Picture / Mark Mitchell

Finance Minister Michael Cullen has ruled out intervening in Air New Zealand's decision to lay off more than 600 mainly Auckland-based staff in its maintenance division.

Dr Cullen met Engineers Union national secretary Andrew Little and Aviation and Marine Engineers Association general secretary George Ryde at the Beehive yesterday, but they emerged empty-handed.

Later Dr Cullen's spokeswoman said that as a shareholder the Government would not intervene in the operational decisions of the company. The Government has an 82 per cent stake in the airline.

Last week Air New Zealand revealed it would outsource to overseas its heavy maintenance on long-haul aircraft. Subject to consultation with the two unions between now and the week before Christmas, this means the potential loss of 617 jobs out of a maintenance workforce of 2100.

Dr Cullen said on Newstalk ZB yesterday, "We are not in the position to start subsidising jobs".

But he said the Government could look at helping with retraining.

Mr Little said the union saw the meeting as a chance to raise its concerns about the outsourcing proposal and it would stay in touch with the Government.

Asked if Dr Cullen gave any indication the Government could look at options to delay or halt the move, Mr Little said: "I don't think there's anything the Government can do about that".

However he added that job losses were not a "foregone conclusion".

Last week the Greens suggested the Government could take a smaller dividend so Air New Zealand did not have to make the cuts.

Greens co-leader Rod Donald said yesterday that deciding not to intervene posed the question of why the Government owned 80 per cent of the airline at all if it was not prepared to keep jobs in New Zealand.

"Why can it have a strong public opinion about [TVNZ newsreader] Judy Bailey's salary but not have an equally strong opinion about saving 600 jobs?"