Who pays for this crisis?

Joyce and Foran’s gestures point to a shared discomfort over the thought airline workers will pay the price for a global downturn they had no control over.

Along with the abandoned tourist cities and the stranded cruise ships, empty airliners have become one of the surreal images of the growing coronavirus crisis in Europe. Some carriers have admitted to flying ‘‘ghost planes’’ without passengers to keep their coveted arrival and departure slots at once-busy airports.

It is an apocalyptic image as well as an absurd one that illustrates how rules can trump common sense. It also shows just how tough things are in the airline business, with no let-up in the short term. Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce warned of a survival of the fittest scenario as he announced six months of reduced flights. While confident Qantas can survive the damage coronavirus will inflict on international travel, he is not convinced other airlines will be so lucky.

Joyce also detailed further cuts to the Qantas and Jetstar business, including cuts in management pay and board fees and asking staff to take paid and unpaid leave, as the cancelled flights will leave the company with 2000 more staff than needed. As has been widely reported, Joyce is taking his own pay cut, by working for free for the rest of the financial year. Last year he made A$23.8m (NZ$24.8m), although his base salary was A$2.17m. One imagines he has a few dollars stashed away for such an occasion.

Those cuts were mirrored on this side of the ditch by Air New Zealand, which announced capacity reductions, hiring freezes and CEO Greg Foran’s attention-getting pay cut of $250,000 from his base salary of $1.65m.

Some scoff at the gesture. Broadcaster Mike Hosking asked, ‘‘Just what does a boss giving up income do? The virus is no-one’s fault.’’ But in Australia, journalist Eddy Jokovich saw it as a show of support for workers. He wondered if Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who called on business and consumers to be patriotic, should do the same. That ‘‘would be a great show of leadership’’.

Disasters are inevitably worse for the poor, whether you live in Haiti, California, or Christchurch. Joyce and Foran’s gestures point to a shared discomfort over the thought airline workers will pay the price for a global downturn they had no control over. It might be less about fault than, to use an unfashionable word, solidarity.

That may be optimistic, and it may simply be about good public relations. But airlines aren’t alone in wondering how they will survive coronavirus. Forestry, education, hospitality, and domestic tourism will also take a hit.

The political argument about a pending minimum wage increase illustrates a wider question about who should pay for the crisis and how. The Government is lifting the minimum wage from $17.70 to $18.90 next month. Should this increase go ahead as planned?

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Finance Minister Grant Robertson have reiterated that the Government has no plans to cancel an increase they believe will stimulate the economy. Voices on the right of politics, including National and ACT, have called for it to be deferred. To be fair, some voices were against the pay rise long before there was a health crisis.

There is an opportunism in calling for measures that would hit the poorest Kiwis hardest at a time when both the Government and Opposition should be bigger than party politics. Putting wage rises for the worst-off on hold is not being in it together.