It's two for the price of one again on the Foreign Exchange Markets, with the Australian dollar slipping below 50 US cents. The Aussie slipped two per cent overnight and then kept falling after Australia's Reserve Bank, this morning, passed up the opportunity to cut Australian interest rates in line with rate cuts overseas. More airlines around the world could go the way of Ansett, largely because of the impact of the disaster in the United States. Travel agents in Australia are reporting a significant drop in inquiries about international flights. The Flight Centre chain says about half its customers who had tickets over the next three months, have delayed or cancelled their trips.
Dictionaries define 'entitlement' as a just claim, a right, or a title.
But the New Zealand financial press today has been blaming Australian workers for claiming the long service leave, redundancy, and other benefits they're entitled to, and thereby putting Air New Zealand under pressure. The suggestion is that paying the half a billion dollars worth of entitlements that the employees have worked for, would break the bank at Air New Zealand, so the shares have plummeted. Federal Parliament reconvenes today in what's likely to be the last and most crucial sitting before the Prime Minister calls an election. It will be a complex mix with the murderous attacks on the United States at the centre of the agenda, though there are plenty of domestic issues at play as well. Federal Tourism Minister, Jackie Kelly, is under fire for conspicuous absence during the Ansett collapse, particularly on the proposal for a special levy on airline tickets to fund workers' entitlements.