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Kia Ora. The Maori greeting beckons arriving passengers into Auckland International Airport – ‘where New Zealand touches the world’.
World Cup Rugby fever has struck here. As one alights off the plane at Auckland Airport the Air New Zealand walkway features giant-sized photographs of members of the country’s famous, iconic rugby team, the All Blacks (set to do battle in the four-yearly tournament next month).
‘Air New Zealand – fanatical supporters of the All Blacks’ reads the tag line.
The Moodie Report is in New Zealand (birthplace of the Publisher), known in Maori as Aotearoa (‘the land of the long white cloud’) to report on a fast-changing commercial environment at Auckland Airport – and on arguably the travel retail industry’s most ambitious Arrivals shopping development (more of that in later BLOGs).
The gateway to the country’s North Island and to the country’s largest city is the second biggest airport in Australasia in passenger terms, trailing only behind Sydney.
And it’s that status that has drawn the interest of some of the aviation sector’s biggest players, notably Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE), the fledgling but powerful and expansionist UAE-based airports group that has launched an aggressive, agreed NZ$3.80 a share bid for Auckland International Airport Limited.
DAE is not the only interested player – the shadows of trans-Tasman aviation giant Macquarie and various pension funds and equity groups are also being cast – but it’s the one currently garnering all the attention here amid a growing storm over foreign ownership of one of the country’s key infrastructure facilities.
It’s also attracting a type of nationalism that to the neutral eye (and in our case an interested and patriotic one) seems a whole lot less healthy that that bestowed on the national rugby team. The deal received a huge set-back last week when Trade Minister Phil Goff said the government wanted two councils with interests in the airport company to retain their respective shareholdings.
Such interventionism – dubbed ‘Goff’s gaffe’ in investment circles – saw shares in Auckland International Airport Limit nose-dive overnight, forcing the government to backtrack at the suggestion of political interference in the markets. But the situation left sectors of the international investment community nervous and fearful of the implications for a supposedly outward-looking country that welcomed foreign investment.
There’s also been plenty of preditably nationalistic jingoism from New Zealand First leader Winston Peters who initially raised “security issues” as his concern (a barely concealed reference to Dubai Aerospace Enterprise’s Middle East origins) before toning down his comments to concerns over the loss of a “key strategic asset” offshore.
Such kneejerk opposition is predictable, irrational and regrettable. Much of it has uncomfortable overtones of the distasteful political furore in the US when Dubai Ports World moved to acquire P&O, thereby allegedly placing sensitive ‘key strategic assets’ (the old chestnut again) in the hands of supposedly dubious Middle East interests.
Whatever one thinks of ‘national assets’ falling into foreign hands, one hopes that any decision will be prefaced by rational discussion and a serious, objective evaluation of the credentials of the would-be buyers – and of the benefits they may bring to the airport and the community.New Zealanders, who have long prided themselves on a sense of fairness and an antipathy to racism, need to do just that. They could start with an examination of the CV of DAE Chairman Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum. Sheikh Ahmed is the President of Dubai Civil Aviation and Chairman of UAE national carrier Emirates.
He heads – through his Civil Aviation role – Dubai Duty Free and he ranks by almost any criteria you care to name as one of the world’s most visionary and outstanding business leaders. I have met him and interviewed him on several occasions and never failed to be impressed by his humility coupled with an absolute determination to make plans that would be dismissed as pipedreams elsewhere in the world come true. Dubai Duty Free, Dubai International Airport and Emirates (which, incidentally, sponsored the recent New Zealand America’s Cup challenge – no sign of Winston Peters and his patriotic mates there when the big bucks were needed) have emerged from nowhere to become outstanding success stories in their respective sectors.
Each has delivered colossal benefits to the business and social communities of Dubai and the UAE. Could Auckland Airport – and New Zealand’s sometimes sleepy tourism sector – do with some of that energy, investment and vision? You bet.
The Moodie Report is proud of its Kiwi origins. We’re proud too of our success on a global stage. We like to think that part of that success is due to our internationalism and sense of fair play. So we take a more than normal interest in this particular affair.
Let’s hope New Zealand saves its ‘fanaticism’ (bad word in the modern world Air New Zealand) for its inspirational rugby team and not for its attitude to much-needed foreign investment.
If this deal turns sour because of irrationalism and ignorance the only cloud over Aotearoa in the world’s investment community will be a long black one.