What has not come out in this bullsh* t discussion is:
1. Given the said flight was an international flight from NZ, was Canberra one of the Company approved and listed Alternate airports?
2. If the answer to 1 is yes, did the captain seek company input or just divert?
3. Did the captain have no other choice
4. If the answer to 1 is no, then the captain would have diverted to an “emergency” airport ie an airport that the company had no formal arrangements for but the runway was long enougn, wide enough and strong enough to permit a safe landing for a B 737. If this is the case then in theory the fact that there was nowhere to park, CIQ may or may not have been available, and they were refuelling helicopters at the RAAF tarmac was irrelevant.
Despite anything Byron says, there may well have been a lot of issues created by the diversion of that B737 that day, but safety and danger was not one of them as Byron alleges.