skystar1, I am truly sorry about your career, as are a hell of a lot of other Kiwis (and no - I'm not being facetious) But there are a few facts that you and many others should acknowledge.
Yes, AN may have been a great place to work and I'm not denying that the staff did a brilliant job, however...it was business basket case. The previous owners had run it down into the ground. For example just look at all the maintenance problems with a widely varied fleet of elderly aircraft. Remember it wasn't our CAA that grounded the 767s at Easter (how convenient for another Australian company) Another harsh fact is that it was not productive. In relation to other businesses, simply put there were too many staff. Sure, they may all have been wonderful dedicated people, but the wage bill was too high when compared to the revenue.
And no, I'm not saying Air New Zealand were blameless either, they should never have bought into AN, but were forced to do so thanks to the Aussie government doing whatever QF told it, ie the last-minute cancelling of the open-skies agreement. As Air NZ staff, we had all learnt the hard way that our management were a bunch of incompetents way out of their depth. All they could do was cut costs, strip out the profits and generally screw the staff. We thought that SQ should have bought the remaining 50% of Ansett, it was just that small-town meglomaniac Cushing on a power trip that thought otherwise. Even the respected Big Gazza, the golden boy from Qanta couldn't fix the mess.
There are over 9000 Air NZ staff members who didn't want AN to go under, and we sure didn't wish that terrible trauma to occur to any staff, Aussies, Kiwis, or whatever. We came very close ourselves but luckily for us we got bailed out, something your government wouldn't do for you.
We can't even begin to imagine the terrible times that have occured, no job, mortgages to pay, families to care for. As I said, we did'nt wish this on anyone, yet continual anti-New Zealand vitriol begins to engender less and less sympathy.
You want to blame someone, great go ahead, but remember it wasn't me, nor any of the other rank & file at Air NZ that destroyed AN. It was the dickheads at the top, from BOTH sides of the ditch.