KEY POINTS:
It seems the Government is happy to be the owner of Air New Zealand for some purposes but not for others .
It is happy to be the owner with "please explain" rights when it comes to calling the airline to account for carrying Aussie troops off to the Middle East for duty in Iraq.
But when it is exposed as paying less than the minimum wage for its Shanghai -based cabin crew, well that's the market operating, says Helen Clark. It might be what Sir Roger Douglas would say were he back in the cabinet. But Labour?
It seems a long way from 1996 when ex- Labour MP, ex union official Graham Kelly made his mark for the low-paid on a related matter, well before he shuffled off to become High commissioner to Canada (a thank-you post for giving up chairmanship of the foreign affairs select committee to Peter Dunne.)
Through tactical pressure Kelly got National's Doug Kidd in 1996 to include in a fisheries amendment bill a clause requiring crew on foreign vessels operating in New Zealand waters it was to be paid the minimum wage.
Partly it was aimed at saving jobs on New Zealand coastal routes - and partly it was to get the slave wages of people doing the same work as New Zealanders in the same stretch of water the same dosh.
So what is the difference? The China-based air crew fly to New Zealand, over New Zealand waters, doing the same work the same airline pays others to do in the same air space. It doesn't seem right, at least not for Labour, and at the very least it does not seem consistent.
Clark was briefed before her post cabinet press conference yesterday about what might be happening in the airline. The China situation should be compared to Air New Zealand's London based cabin crew who work to London the LA route and she would not be surprised if they were paid more than the airline's New Zealand-based crew.
Kelly had what he termed a second leg of the double in 2002 when he got a private member's bill through aimed at helping crew on foreign vessels who were abandoned and stranded down here by their owners.
It was Sue Bradford of the Greens who reminded me that the ships crew move was Kelly's move. I thought it had been her or Laila Harre.
Bradford says the China-based crew should be paid more because they are bilingual and that it is as hard for Chinese to learn English as it is for English-speakers to learn Chinese. She would know: she studied Mandarin for six years at university though has lost it through lack of practise.
Incidentally, Kelly's son Brian Kelly has been selected as Labour's candidate in Pakuranga, standing against Maurice Williamson.
