Well I was an outsider who happened to be on the inside at the time of the ANZ take over of AN. There was a HUGE amount of money wasted on all sorts of stuipity, and I mean tens of millions of AUD. Much of this was in the name of saving $200M a year by combining the infrastucture of the two airlines. No mention of the cost of doing it though, and there never was $200M to save either, more like $20M
There was one very clear leader in all this waste - Sir Selwyn. If there is anyone person or a small group of people to blame, then you MUST start and finish with this man. He may not have been alone, but he most certainly was at the helm when the rot took hold. By the time Toomey came along it was all but to late, and then IMHO Toomey was not allowed to do the things that he could see needed to be done.
There are two innocent groups that I feel very sorry for in this whole stuff up. The employees on both sides of the Tasman who worked for both AN & ANZ prior to the merge, and now don't have a job, and secondly, the mum & dad shareholders of ANZ who Sir Selwyn and Ms Clarke between them have shafted properly.