Air NZ appointment of new boss sparks backlash
Ravishankar, chief digital officer at company, was tapped to lead the national carrier - one of the country's most respected corporate brands - after Greg Foran steps down in October.
However, the appointment of the Indian-origin insider to the airline's top job has attracted a torrent of abuse online, with many zeroing in on Ravishankar's ethnicity.
The abuse forced the country's leading media organisations to restrict or disable the ability to comment on the social media posts announcing the news.
New Zealand Herald disabled comments on the Facebook post announcing the appointment "due to racist comments".
"We appreciate the high level of interest in this story but cannot safely moderate it at this time," the news outlet said in a post in the comment thread.
A spokesperson at New Zealand Herald later pointed RNZ towards the company's policy on social media comments.
"We want to foster a safe online community by reducing instances of hate, racism, abuse and misinformation," the media organisation's policy said.
"We welcome your feedback on articles but there has to be some parameters, and these are explained in our community house rules.
"These clearly explain that we will not publish comments that are insulting, inflammatory or derogatory or those that spread misinformation or include personal attacks.
"We cannot tolerate hate. We cannot tolerate abuse towards individuals in our stories or other commenters."
RNZ was also forced to disable comments on the social media post regarding Ravishankar's appointment.
"Under RNZ's comments policy, we will proactively disable comments on posts which may attract abusive or harmful comments or when resources are required elsewhere," a spokesperson said.
"In this instance, the comments were disabled after our monitoring found racist comments.
"We want people to feel safe and respected on our community forums and will continue to proactively disable comments where necessary. We will not tolerate harmful communications."
TVNZ's 1News digital service took similar action in terms of restricting comments on the post.
"We received a large number of comments on this post," a spokesperson for 1News said.
"The vast majority were appropriate, however some were not. With our news team diverted to cover the tsunami event yesterday afternoon and evening we opted to turn comments off given sufficient monitoring wasn't possible."
Ravishankar holds bachelor's degrees in science and commerce from the University of Auckland after attending Mount Albert Grammar School in New Zealand's largest city.
He sits on the board of New Zealand Asian Leaders and is an advisory committee member of The Auckland Blues Foundation.
Ravishankar has been with Air New Zealand for nearly five years and been involved in strengthening its technology, loyalty and customer services.
Before joining the airline, Ravishankar was chief digital officer at Vector New Zealand, leading the company's digital and information technology function and its transformation programme from 2017.
He was previously managing director at Accenture in Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, and held technology strategy and transformation leadership roles at Spark New Zealand.
Ravishankar highlighted the deep legacy of the company he would soon lead in his first public comments after his appointment was announced.
"This airline is an institution with a deep legacy but also a fantastic future," he said.
"It's a privilege to step into the CEO role and take on that responsibility for our people, our customers and our country.
"At the end of the day, we are a people business - purposeful, ambitious and deeply rooted in Aotearoa New Zealand, and I'm excited to help shape what this next stage of Air New Zealand looks like."
RNZ has approached Air New Zealand for comment.
Latest Census data in 2023 showed that the Indian population had leapfrogged the Chinese community to become the third-largest ethnic group in New Zealand.
A total of 292,092 people in the country identified as a member of the Indian community in the 2023 Census, an increase of 22% since 2018.
The New Zealand European ethnic group remained the largest, with a population of 3,099,858, followed by Māori with 887,493.
Auckland's Indian population grew by 13% between 2018 and 2023, rising from 154,824 in 2018 to 175,794 five years later.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Otago Daily Times
3 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Previous govt spent too much during Covid: Treasury
By Giles Dexter of RNZ The previous government spent too much during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite warnings from officials, according to a briefing released by the Treasury. The Treasury's 2025 Long Term Insights Briefing said debt had risen in recent decades, partly because responses to adverse shocks were not met by savings between those shocks. The higher debt meant less capacity to respond to future shocks, like natural hazards, weather-related risks and biosecurity risks. Treasury estimated the total cost of the pandemic was $66 billion over the 2020-26 financial years and about 20.4% of GDP. The IMF and OECD estimated it was among the largest Covid-19 responses globally. The agency releases a briefing every three years, with this one looking at the role of fiscal policy through shocks and business cycles. The briefing said the Covid-19 response showed the challenges of using fiscal policy to respond to shocks and cycles. Initially, Treasury recommended "strong fiscal stimulus" at the start of the pandemic, which was cited as "perhaps" causing the economy to be much stronger than expected by the end of 2020. The wage-subsidy scheme in particular was seen as making an important contribution to the strong initial recovery, limiting the increase in the unemployment rate and enabling economic activity to resume when restrictions relaxed. Treasury then moved away from recommending broad-based stimulus, preferring more targeted and moderate support. Its post-election advice to the then-Finance Minister in late 2020 highlighted "the importance of controlling ongoing spending and ensuring it was high value to meet the medium-term fiscal challenge." By August 2021, with the Delta lockdowns coming in, Treasury recommended any decisions to provide support to businesses "should take account of macroeconomic trade-offs". It recommended against any further stimulus from Budget 2022 onwards. Wage subsidies and similar schemes during lockdowns made up about 35% of the costs of the response. A further 18% came from health-system costs, like vaccination, contact tracing, and managed isolation and quarantine. The remaining "nearly half" was made up of a wide range of initiatives that Treasury said had "varied objectives". Some were aimed at directly responding to the impacts of Covid-19, others were aimed at providing fiscal stimulus or "achieving social or environmental objectives". They included "tax changes, training schemes, housing construction, shovel-ready infrastructure projects, increases to welfare benefits, the Small Business Cashflow Scheme, Jobs for Nature, additional public housing places and school lunches". Programmes within the fiscal response that were not tied to the shock were seen as having "a lagged impact on the economy and proved difficult to unwind in later years". The report suggested cyclical management was best left to monetary policy, run by an independent central bank. It also suggested governments set out clearly when fiscal policy will be used ahead of time, including pre-defining responses. Ideally, this would have cross-party agreement. An independent fiscal institution, which could scrutinise and report on the sustainability of fiscal policy, was also suggested. The previous government had considered setting up a watchdog to cost election policies, but it could not get cross-party support. National then changed its tune, with current Finance Minister Nicola Willis supporting such a measure, but New Zealand First and ACT were opposed to the idea. 'Dangers of excessive spending' - Willis Willis jumped on the report's release, saying Treasury's language was "spare and polite", but its conclusions were "damning". She said the briefing showed the challenges of using "big spending measures" to respond to one-off shocks. Willis singled out the briefing's focus on the money spent on initiatives not directly tied to the Covid-19 response. "That is a very diplomatic way of saying New Zealanders are still paying the price of the previous government extending a big-spending approach, initially intended for a pandemic response," she said. Labour has been approached for comment.
Otago Daily Times
4 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Trump's tariffs come into effect
President Donald Trump's higher tariff rates of 10% to 50% on dozens of trading partners kicked in today, testing his strategy for shrinking US trade deficits without massive disruptions to global supply chains, higher inflation and stiff retaliation from trading partners. US Customs and Border Protection agency began collecting the higher tariffs at 4pm (NZ time) after weeks of suspense over Trump's final tariff rates and frantic negotiations with major trading partners that sought to lower them. Goods loaded on to US-bound vessels and in transit before the midnight deadline can enter at lower prior tariff rates before October 5, according to a CBP notice to shippers issued this week. Imports from many countries had previously been subject to a baseline 10% import duty after Trump paused higher rates announced in early April. But since then, Trump has frequently modified his tariff plan, slapping some countries with much higher rates, including 50% for goods from Brazil, 39% from Switzerland, 35% from Canada and 25% from India. He announced a separate 25% tariff on Indian goods on Wednesday to be imposed in 21 days over the South Asian country's purchases of Russian oil. Ahead of the deadline, Trump heralded the "billions of dollars" that will flow into the US, largely from countries that he said had taken advantage of the United States. "THE ONLY THING THAT CAN STOP AMERICA'S GREATNESS WOULD BE A RADICAL LEFT COURT THAT WANTS TO SEE OUR COUNTRY FAIL!" Trump said on Truth Social. Eight major trading partners accounting for about 40% of US trade flows have reached framework deals for trade and investment concessions with Trump, including the European Union, Japan and South Korea, reducing their base tariff rates to 15%. Britain won a 10% rate, while Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines secured rate reductions to 19% or 20%. "For those countries, it's less bad news," said William Reinsch, a senior fellow and trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "There'll be some supply chain rearrangement. There'll be a new equilibrium. Prices here will go up, but it'll take a while for that to show up in a major way," Reinsch said. Countries with punishingly high duties, such as India and Canada, "will continue to scramble around trying to fix this," he added. Trump's order has specified that any goods determined to have been trans-shipped from a third country to evade higher US tariffs will be subject to an additional 40% import duty, but his administration has released few details on how these goods would be identified or the provision enforced. Trump's July 31 tariff order imposed duties above 10% on 67 trading partners, while the rate was kept at 10% for those not listed. These import taxes are one part of a multilayered tariff strategy that includes national security-based sectoral tariffs on semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, autos, steel, aluminum, copper, lumber and other goods. Trump said yesterday the microchip duties could reach 100%. China is on a separate tariff track and will face a potential tariff increase on August 12 unless Trump approves an extension of a prior truce after talks last week in Sweden. He has said he may impose additional tariffs over China's purchases of Russian oil as he seeks to pressure Moscow into ending its war in Ukraine. Financial markets largely shrugged off the new tariffs, with stock markets in Asia at or near record highs while the dollar dipped slightly. REVENUES, PRICE HIKES Trump has touted the vast increase in federal revenues from his import tax collections, which are ultimately paid by companies importing the goods and consumers of end products. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that US tariff revenues could top $300 billion a year. The move will drive average US tariff rates to around 20%, the highest in a century and up from 2.5% when Trump took office in January, the Atlantic Institute estimates. Commerce Department data released last week showed more evidence that tariffs began driving up US prices in June, including for home furnishings and durable household equipment, recreational goods and motor vehicles. Costs from Trump's tariff war are mounting for a wide swath of companies, including bellwethers Caterpillar, Marriott, Molson Coors and Yum Brands. All told, global companies that have reported earnings so far this quarter are looking at a hit of around $US15 billion ($NZ25.17 billion) to profits in 2025, Reuters' global tariff tracker shows.
Scoop
9 hours ago
- Scoop
Workers Moving Towns In Desperate Quest For Jobs
Krystal Gibbens, Journalist People are having to take jobs in different towns from where they live in order to find work as unemployment rises. The unemployment rate has risen to a near-five year high of 5.2 percent as businesses either sack staff or stop hiring, with 156,000 people out of work. It comes as Auckland's Business Chamber boss Simon Bridges is calling on the government to do more to stimulate the economy in the supercity and the country. As well, it's been revealed the unemployment rate for Pacific people is 12.1 percent, more than double the national average, and the Salvation Army says the situation may get worse. Hawke's Bay woman Shannon Kendall had to take a job two hours away from where she lived to find employment. Kendall is a project manager in the construction industry. She said after being made redundant in 2024 she spent a year looking for work before finding a job in Palmerston North. "I was applying for jobs in Auckland, I was applying for jobs in Australia and I was ready to just do whatever I had to do and commute big time to have employment and to stay in my industry." Kendall said it had been a tough 12 months and she was thankful for the job. But despite finding a job in another town, Kendall is commuting rather than relocating, with a son still enrolled in school in Hawke's Bay. Rotorua-based writer-editor Matt Walker meanwhile lost his job in the public service cuts early last year. Walker found himself sending out more than 200 job applications over the next 15 months, with no success. "I kept applying for public service roles in Rotorua and got a short-term contract at one point but I continued to look for a permanent job," he said. Walker, who has 25 years of professional experience, said the job market had become fiercely competitive. In one application process, he was up against 220 other candidates. "It's tough out there with hundreds of people going for the same role," Walker said. Now, he finally has a job in the NGO sector, but it requires him to travel from Rotorua to Christchurch. Walker said his current workplace has been incredibly supportive, providing him with all the resources he needed to succeed. "I'm not looking for a job change now," he said. Christchurch man James Brown earlier told RNZ he had applied for more than 100 jobs without luck. The insurance adjustor moved to Brisbane after he was made redundant just over a year ago. He was still working there, but needed to return home to his partner and children. "I have an extensive CV, it shouldn't be this difficult to find a job," he said. The latest figures show Auckland's 6.1 percent unemployment rate for the June 2025 quarter is the worst of all regions. About 15,000 more Aucklanders are without a job than this time last year. Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) head of advocacy Alan McDonald said while the agriculture industry was bolstering employment elsewhere, Auckland had different economic drivers. Jobless numbers worse for Pasifika Ana Ika, social policy analyst at the Salvation Army, told Pacific Waves that the higher unemployment rate for Pacific reflected difficulties around finding work and education opportunities in the current climate. "Our labour force participation rate actually hasn't changed that much, but our unemployment has increased," she said. That indicated a lot of young people had entered the labour force and were not securing jobs or training and education opportunities, she said. "We would think…that a lot of that unemployment for Pacific is predominantly our young people," Ika said. Intern Kajal Nair contributed to this story.
