"Sunday Telegraph"
Fels to curb Qantas
By national political writer SIMON KEARNEY
18nov01
CORPORATE watchdog Professor Allan Fels could be given new powers to restrict the near-monopoly of Qantas in the domestic travel market.
The Federal Government is considering a request from Virgin Blue to pull back Qantas's dominant position by allowing Virgin to take over part of Ansett.
Virgin Blue has proposed a partial take-over with controversial former Patrick Stevedoring boss, Chris Corrigan.
They have told Transport Minister John Anderson they want to bid for Ansett's terminals and freight business.
Virgin's head of commercial operations, David Huttner, said Qantas was using its monopoly power to squeeze out smaller players.
"Everyone knows these guys are playing dirty," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "Professor Fels has not been given the teeth to deal with them and Mr Anderson was open to the suggestion of doing that."
A spokesman for Mr Anderson said the Government was looking at new powers for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) that Prof Fels heads.
Financial Regulation Minister Joe Hockey's office confirmed the new powers would be addressed as part of the review of the Trade Practices Act, which the Coalition promised during the election campaign.
Qantas last week argued that changes to the Trade Practices Act would "severely handicap Qantas just for being efficient".
Mr Huttner said Virgin's meeting with Mr Anderson was to inform him of its continued interest in taking over part of Ansett and to ensure that taxpayers' money was not used unfairly to prop up Ansett Mk II.
Ansett's administrators are hoping that a $195 million loan from the Federal Government can be converted into a grant to pay creditors.
The other major bidders, Lindsay Fox and Solomon Lew, say their bid to get a leaner Ansett flying on major routes with new planes is no longer reliant on the $195 million from taxpayers.
"If Mr Lew and Mr Fox can put together a deal that does not rely on Government breaks, then we wish them well," Mr Huttner said.
Virgin wants to buy the terminal space because they believe Ansett is charging them too much to use facilities at Australian airports.
Mr Huttner said Ansett's charges rose from $300-a-flight for terminal space in Launceston to more than $1000-a-flight within a week.
Mr Corrigan's Lang Corporation is interested in taking over Ansett's freight business. An ACTU spokesman said Mr Corrigan's background in the waterfront dispute was no barrier to them negotiating with him on Ansett.
The spokesman said the union movement had had successful negotiations with Lang Corp since the bitter waterfront dispute ended.
Ansett creditors endorsed the Fox-Lew bid on Thursday at a meeting which also heard Lang Corp hoped to acquire Ansett terminals and infrastructure in an equity deal with Virgin that would lead to the expansion of Virgin and the employment of about 2000 Ansett staff.
However, a full creditors' meeting is yet to decide the airline's fate.
On Friday Mr Anderson indicated he was not prepared to commit large amounts of taxpayers' money to get Ansett back off the ground.