Tantrums

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27406, 20 July 1954, Page 10

Tantrums

It is clear from the statement of the Mayor of Wellington, reported in a Press Association message this morning, that Mr Macalister’s attitude to the question of a separate trans-Tasman air service for Wellington is now about as reasonable

and responsible as the demands of a spoilt five-year-old for a new toy. Mr Macalister is indignant and upset. And he is indignant and upset not because the Government has refused (yet) to grant T.E.A.L.’s application to use Ohakea, but because the Minister of Civil Aviation has said that this is something the Government must examine before making a decision. Mr Macalister says T.E.A.L. has already done all the examining necessary; it had asked for permission to use Ohakea “ only after a full and “proper investigation”. Mr Macalister thinks the Government should abdicate its duties and responsibilities in this matter to T.E.A.L.; not the Government but T.E.A.L. should decide where and how the taxpayers’ money should be spent on expensive (and redundant) airport facilities; not the Government but T.E.A.L. should have the disposal of the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s chief operational station and decide whether the Air Force may use it for its proper purpose or have to share it indefinitely with T.E.A.L. —to the danger, possibly, of both military and civil aircraft and their occupants. T.E.A.L. no doubt has made a full investigation; and it may be given credit for studying the convenience of its prospective passengers as well as its own finances, which may or may not coincide. But it is to be doubted whether it has given more than a passing thought to these important questions for which the Government alone must take the responsibility of deciding. T.E.A.L, is not interested in these questions and would

not be competent to advise on them if it were. Neither T.E.A.L, nor any other airline is entitled to say what airports it will* use; that is something for the Government alone to decide on the advice of it? competent officers appointed for the purpose. To Mr Macalister the separate Tasman service for Wellington is now something that concerns the emotions rather than economics, the convenience of the country as a whole, or the efficient working of the country’s Air Force. On an earlier occasion Mr Macalister brushed aside as of no consequence the reasoned and reasonable statement in which the Minister explained that Wellington air travellers have little to gain from the use of the distant Ohakea airfield, and that the Government has to look at all aspects of the question. Now Mr Macalister is incensed because “somebody, perhaps more “than one person, has a spanner in “the works” —because, in other words, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, the Air Department, and others no less concerned than Wellington, are also having their legitimate interests considered. The Government should know how to answer these tantrums.