"Now that Australian carriers apparently find themselves hoist on the regulatory petard constructed by their own protectionist policies" - best use of language I've heard from the Seppos in years!!
But... I can't really see why UA are fighting this one that hard - if they really are going for open skies, then the logical extension of that on the Pacific run is the entry of SQ
... unless, of course, UA are happy to let SQ operate the route and just code-share on SQ and NZ services.
Or possibly just SQ, if the NZ authorities see the light one day and allow QF and NZ to consolidate in some fashion (so pulling NZ out of Star)...