Memories of the Ansett Collapse

Boy I'm on a roll tonight, and considering I have spent 5 hours at a Calastenthics Consert today, I'm full of energy!

Today's article in The Age, sure brought back memories, even though the article doesn't mention it, the collapse happened on 14th September 2001, 3 days after you know what. I was in my 2nd year on Council by then and knew immediately the implications that the collapse of Ansett would have on the City of Hume and Sunbury.

I addressed a Rally at the Airport and promised to do whatever I could to help those workers now faced with fact that their jobs were gone, however everyone lived in hope that the Airline could be resurected.

The Council did some beneficial things to help the local residents affected by the collapse, but stories like mentioned in The Age article were coming common place within a few weeks of the collapse, and moreso in the years after.

I went to Canberra on 13th March 2002 (I remember the date as it was my birthday) to plead with both Anderson and Abbott to provide some sort of regional relief, their reply was to follow the usual red-tape bureaucratic processes to apply for relief, a fat lot of good that would do as it takes months for this type of relief to come through.

Fundamentally though, it is still beyond my comprehension how the Federal Government could allow it to happen, but now the memories come flooding back, Ansett wasn't owned by Stanley Howard was it?