Puts on flame-proof suit, false eyebrows and moustache, and hides in an underground bunker - then suggests....Isn't it about time, especially in the light of all the recent evidence, for people to accept atht with/without ANZ's involvement, AN was a goner - the ANZ involvement just prolonged the death throws - every on e in NZ, from the PM downwards, will happily concede that buying all of AN, with the naive hope it could be made profitable, given it was already in a bad way, WAS DUMB, A RECKLESS WASTE OF ANZ SHAREHOLDERS FUNDS, etc etc - BUT - that is why ANZ got into financial trouble, NOT why AN failed - AN failed because, despite what it may/may not have in in the past, in the years immediately preceding its collapse it was performing very badly financial - a culture if waste, overmanning, and feather bedding had crept in: I am not making any judgement on the hard work/attitudes of individual employees, or the quality of cabin service, etc, but on the whole company ethos, which was top management driven, middle management perpetuated. The fact that in a slimmed down, new look, new money format it could still not be made to work speaks volumes - I see reference to suggestions the Aussie Govt would have had to pay subsidies of a billion per year - if it was politically acceptable, no doubt it might have done so - ANZ already lost 1.25 B in AN - no matter what money was thrown at it, it wasn't going to work - and not seeing that/not acceoting that before buying was the BIG mistake of the ANZ board - but a mistake of a private/commercial enterprise - the freedom to fail is a "privilege" of the free market. Other correspondents have commented on other company collapses in Australia - it's just a business - all the little Aussie Icon rhetoric aside - and for a variety of financial reasons, INCLUDING errors by the ANZ board, it failed - and nearly took ANZ with it - BUT - there was no transferring of assetts to ANZ etc as has been alleged - and this has been publically stated by the administrators - it failed because "culturally", in the business practice, employment practice, self perception points of view, AN management and staff had not caught up with the times - PLUS a dose of bad luck with the B767 "groundings" etc - and maybe some in Aussie who fomented that whole exercise as a xenophobic reaction to off-shore (NZ is hardly "foreign) ownership need to be examining their consciences about now too. My heart goes out to the AN staff who stayed loyal and stuck it out abd did their best - but bigger, global, forces were at work, and internal Aussie political forces as well.. .(heads for underground shelter)