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I agree with you Rothkoid, that Ansett (did) carries huge symbolic baggage in Aus - being the means by which people from all over Strayla have been able to travel (over what is a large continent) from seemingly quite remote places. Over time Ansett have definitely instituted their brand into Aust society - a symbol of national transport, Australian industriousness/customer service; the flipside of the international carrier, Qantas. Now, yeh, this symbol has gone.
I think that there is another level or two to the media attention. Apart from the customers who have lost their booked flights , deposits/payments and accumulated frequent flyer points, and apart from the creditors who are probably going to see little of their bills repaid, it's the wage and salary earners that are now the story. Unemployed with no redundancy payment, unlikely to collect accumulated entitlements such as holiday pay, the workers of Ansett have been thrown out.
That the anger and grief of the employees is the headline story comes down to perhaps three factors: a deregulating,free-marketeering federal Liberal party government, an immminent federal election in a time of Liberal party defeats in a number of state elections, and a strain of populist demagogery which has seen extreme right (Pauline Hanson's racist, anti-globalism, talkback jocks) and left groupings (some trade unions, S11 style protestors) in agreement over their anger at global capital, the free market, corporate greed and worker disenfranchisement.
So, the Howard federal government, after its slashing of spending to unemployment services, the unversity sector, deregulation of a number of markets (telephony, insurance)
now has money in the kitty to buy the populist vote. Add into the mix some large recent corporate collapses (the multi-0national insurance co. HIH, and the fledgling Telc, Onetel) where lavishly self-rewarded company directors/ chairmen presided over books that were cooked till they burnt, while small creditors and workers were thrown away, and you've got a seething anger in Australian society that has shape and force. An anger that is articulated in the language of anti-globalisation, worker protection, suspicion of large corporations, the state, politicians.
Yeh, Dick Smith, a recent aviation chief administrator and former electronics retailer, who shamelessly uses koala-bear nationalism to feather his own coat of many colours ("Dick Smith" brand peanut butter - with a picture of Dick's dial positioned on the front of the jar, smiling as the Strayun flag sits proudly behind his nerdy head), was there at the worker protests, throwing the boot into the current minister responsible for transport - John Anderson the National party leader and deputy Prime minister.
What is remarkable about the Ansett collapse story is that it broke through the American one with such force, because it taps into a growing sentiment and movement: anti-global,
real mutual obligation, and a federal government so beholden to populism in a time of election that its policies and decisions are based on a type of reactionary plebiscite, which is heading left (unlike the 'plebiscites' of the race driven, refugee issue - Australia is still Anglican, in culture, polity, race and religion at its core). |
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