Crikey at another Ansett creditors' meeting

Crikey interrupted packing for the family holiday to pop down to the third Ansett creditors meeting at Jeff's Shed in Melbourne yesterday and found it to be a fascinating affair.

For the first time at a stakeholder meeting that Crikey has attended, it included some highly intelligent debate because a procession of lawyers stood up to express their respective opinions on behalf of a raft of different creditors interspersed by various union heavies and employees going over the top with the emotional blackmail about looking after Ansett workers.

The administrators were proposing a deed of company arrangement (DOCA) rather than a liquidation which is more popular with the airports, aircraft owners and the like because a liquidator is more likely to start suing people and will stop dragging the process out.

To get a feeling for the meeting let's summarise and paraphrase with a little bit of Crikey interpretation what the 21 speakers said:

1. Linda Abernathy: lawyer for the Sydney Airports Corporation Ltd (SACL): this proposal sucks. We want a liquidator now. We demand a poll. We have legal advice that contradicts what the two Marks say and believe the clauses in our lease agreement which say we can buy it back at "fair market value" are definitely triggered by liquidation and probably triggered by DOCA. Give us our asset back now for a cheap price so we can get on a sell it to the highest bidder. If the DOCA gets approved we'll be challenging it in court.

2. Julian Hayes: Lawyer and proxy for the Brisbane Airports Corporation: I'm with SACL and second the motion demanding a poll. Agree with everything she said and we're sick of you administrators dragging this process out and costing us stacks of money.

3. John Keneva: Global Rewards Action Group: We're owed $1.4 billion and I stand here today representing frequent flyers owed $100 million. The DOCA sucks as you've screwed us and looked after your worker and union mates. Give us a liquidator now.

4. Steve Small: 28 year veteran with Ansett as Customer Service Operator: I'm physically and morally bigger than that frequent flyer low life who just spoke. He's lost points, some of us have lost our homes. I'm owed more than 100k. That sheila from SACL doesn't give a stuff about workers like me. There's already been lots of marriage breakdowns and suicides and liquidation will only throw the remaining 1500 Ansett staff on the scrap heap with me.

5. Greg Combet: ACTU secretary and Global Rewards member: I totally disagree with most other frequent flyers and want to save these last 1300 jobs from the liquidator's axe. SACL want to attend an auction as the only bidder (good point Greg). You can't blame these administrators that I hand-picked for the $100m plus that has been lost over the past six months. This is a very important decision and what action are you going to take against Tesna? The Marks said it was "unlikely" they'd sue Tesna.

6. James Marshall: politely spoken lawyer representing a range of unsecured creditors including Hewlett Packard, IBM, Airbus and other aircraft owners and lessors. You administrators are not independent and we want a different liquidator or administrator of the deed and someone independent to review your administration. You chose to restart Ansett and go with Tesna and this failed, costing us all heaps. We've heard that ASIC have written to you saying there will be no insolvent trading action because of the letter of comfort from Air New Zealand. Give us a liquidator now because otherwise people will forget thing, records will disappear and it will be generally tougher to issue legal proceedings against the idiots who did this to Ansett and will see us recover zero cents in the dollar.

7. Tony Whelan: gruff lawyer representing the Commonwealth Government owed $90 million. Raised a series of technical questions about the DOCA which brought some interesting responses including one that the superannuation funds are quibbling over a so-called 10 per cent bonus payment if staff were retrenched (another amazing sweetheart union deal in Crikey's humble opinion).

8. Will Semler: frequent flyer: Supports the DOCA but how much are you administrators getting paid. The Marks repeated their line about working for 35 per cent less than their usual rates and then conceded the figures had blown out from $10 million at the January 29 meeting to $18 million now - all of which has been approved by the 32 person creditors committee.

9. Stephen Donohue: Ansett employee. Where's my 100k in entitlements and all you frequent flyers, airports and other unsecured creditors who will be getting diddly squat are greedy so and sos compared with us workers who'll be getting 92 per cent of their entitlements which includes 8 weeks pay for work we never did and maybe even a 10 per cent bonus on our super if we're lucky. (Crikey: there's some real licence in this as he actually said nothing of the sort but I'm just trying to point out how the unions have collected all the goodies from the administrator.)

10. Peter Cash: arrogant lawyer representing super funds for flight attendants and pilots: You still owe us $2.8 million in "normal" super contributors and then there is the super bonus payouts of between $80m and $140m which were misleadingly explained earlier. We hate the wording of the deed and if it is not amended we'll be running straight to court "to terminate the deed" because you have no jurisdiction to "sever the assets" and this will be sorted out before the courts anyway as we have a July 16 trial date. This spray seemed at odds with the flight attendants union which loves the DOCA proposal.

11. John McGrade: 36 year Ansett veteran with thick Scottish accent. All that matters is our jobs and the rest of you can get stuffed.

12. Dave Oliver: union heavy from the AMWU representing 300 workers owed $15m (Gee, $50,000 each ain't bad, will they be getting 92 per cent of that whilst everyone else gets nothing?): I'm a big believer in fairness and equity (Excuse me, read the previous comment Dave). Some of my poor members have lost their jobs twice. 1500 jobs will go tomorrow if a liquidator is appointed. Go for the DOCA as this is like the governor putting in a call to the gallows and saying don't flick the switch. (The unionists were all big on these colourful analogies).

13. Bill Shorten: AWU secretary and Prime Ministerial wannabe: the most offensive speech of the day. Anyone getting zero cents in the dollar and inclined to go for liquidation was "a coalition of usual suspects". I'm gob-smacked that Gattex (aircraft owner) could have a whinge and don't expect my maintenance workers will fix any more of your planes (hmmm, industrial blackmail perhaps form Billy here). It's great to finally see one of these blood-sucking SACL low-lives in the flesh. You don't give a stuff about workers and claim to be acting in the public interest when you're really robbing Peter to pay Paul because taxpayers will shell out all these extra dole and welfare cheques. Stop making your appalling "velvet threats" about legal action and stop throwing rocks from outside the tent and accept the umpires decision.(Ummm, didn't the ACTU use legal threats at the start of the process to get PWC sacked as administrators?)

14. Linda Roberts: ASU rep whose workers are owed $90m: Congrats on looking after my members and their employee entitlements (yes, retrenched workers have received $302 million from the administrators so far but you'd never believe it based on all the whingeing and intimidation of non-employee creditors yesterday) but when are the Traveled workers going to get their $7.5m?

15. Laurie Richards: 5 year Ansett employee and unionist: F3 on the juke box again defending the amazingly preferential treatment of Ansett workers and telling everyone else to stick their zero cents payout in their pipe and smoke it.

16. Ian Lang: proxy for groundstaff owed $11.1m in super. You administrators have done well looking after us.

17. Diane Knight: Ansett manager: Disgusted that anyone could try to protect their position before employees get every last dollar they are owed over the past 67 years.

18: Asian guy with strong accent but sounded like "Meg": Technical question about Metro Travel super.

19. Crikey: frequent flyer/Golden Wing member: Too scared to say supported liquidation with all the sledging of non-workers so said leaning towards supporting DOCA. What happens with the proxy situation, how much is as stake with the superannuation top-ups or bonuses, concerned about independence of the two Marks and Arthur Andersen given that Andersen is Solly Lew's preferred auditor for outfits like Premier Investments. We should be suing Tesna but Andersen has too much baggage and too many conflicts to do this. Who is on the 32 per cent creditors committee because Andersen has been too close to the unions and it is this committee that decides their fees of $18 million so far and would also decide about suing Tesna which the Marks admitted earlier was "unlikely". The super figure was put at $80m-140m and the voting was decided by 50 per cent of value and 50 per cent of number which could get very interesting. Yes Andersen has worked for Solly but all conflicts have been declared. The creditors committee includes creditors from all categories but yes there are 6 unionists on it.

I had to leave after question time but the mainstream press will no doubt be able to update you on what actually happened.

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