Fair dinkum, mate!

A REPORT, carried by newspapers in South Australia on August 19, went unnoticed or at least not widely shared in social media.

According to the report, AirAsia X was requested to remove its advertising that encouraged people to travel to Asia rather than the regions in South Australia.

Slogans like Kangaroo Island or Kuala Lumpur, Port Lincoln or Phuket, Victor Harbour or Vietnam and one telling Australians that AirAsia X has more awards than a Barossa Shiraz, had been splashed on buses and taxis across Adelaide and other South Australian towns.

This has apparently irked the opposition leader, Steven Marshall, who called the advertising “absolutely unacceptable.”

“Our state government spends millions each year promoting South Australian destinations, yet they’re having a go on the back of buses, saying it’s cheaper to fly to Asia than to go to Kangaroo Island,” he rasped.

South Australia’s Tourism Minister Leon Bignell, after noting taxpayer money was not used to support the campaign, pointed out that the government had, however, spoken to the airline and AirAsia X had agreed to remove the ads.

“We haven’t put a single cent into these ads that they’re doing in South Australia. What we’re doing is entering into a joint marketing exercise with AirAsia X and Tourism Australia to sell Adelaide, to sell South Australia into those 80 ports throughout Asia.

“While we have to compete nationally and internationally, that sounds like blatant opportunism to me. The ads were not in the spirit of the government’s agreement with the airline and despite similar ads for South Australia running in Malaysia, they are being removed,” he explained.

I’m impressed by how Steven Marshall, the opposition leader, dealt with the issue – no name calling, no blame game, just the issue itself. I am also amazed by the quick reaction of their Tourism Minister in sorting things out. No fuss.

But what is more an eye-opener was how Malaysians reacted to the complaint — by agreeing to take down the ads almost immediately, with no protest.

This is not the first time AirAsia X has complied with the Australian authority. In December last year, the budget airline was fined A$200,000 by an Australian court for breaching the single pricing provision under Australian Consumer Law.

Under this Law, businesses that choose to advertise a part of the price of a particular product or service must also prominently specify a single total price.

Besides the penalty, the airline also took an undertaking to restrain from engaging in similar conduct for three years.

If this were to happen in Malaysia, how would we react, I wonder?

Take a look at the local political scene and see how quick some of the players will jump in to exploit the situation for political mileage. But why should the Malaysian way be destructive – why complain and grip all the time about just anything the government says or intends to implement?

From the Transport Minister to the Tourism Minister and the Prime Minister – all are not spared the name calling.

In the case of the Tourism Minister, he would probably send a special officer to investigate and report back to him. It will take time for something to happen – perhaps with the excuse that the special officer is not on the government’s payroll and, therefore, not required nor accountable to report and propose solutions.

What was significant about the AirAsia X ad episode in South Australia was the way the party concerned — in this case, the advertisers or Malaysians – reacted to a testy situation. They went about complying with prevailing ground sentiments in a mature fashion.

Obviously, AirAsia X has a case here as rightly pointed out by Port Lincoln mayor Bruce Green: “It’s much a free world and competition is good. Hopefully, we will get more international tourists coming to Port Lincoln. Having our name up there wasn’t such a bad thing.”

Victor Harbor mayor Graham Philip, also mindful of the old cliché “any advertising is good advertising”, added with humour that he was disappointed that his town’s name was incorrectly spelt with a “u”.

A newspaper conducted an online poll on the issue with the question: “Were the AirAsia X ads bad for regional Australia’s image?”

The poll shows 67.2 per cent agreed that any publicity is good publicity, 21.7 per cent said absolutely, they tried to direct tourists away from key regional towns while 11.1 per cent reacted to certain extent with ambivalence.

Interestingly though, would the party concerned have reacted in the same way if a similar situation were to occur in Malaysia? Most probably, they would hold a press conference, accusing the government of suppressing them, or convene a high-flying meeting and finally decide to comply with the instruction but not announcing when they would take down the object of contention.

As an ordinary citizen, I do wish the politicians, the administrators and people in position of authority would try to handle a touchy situation as clearly, swiftly, effectively and rationally as how the ad issue was handled by the South Australian government and our own Malaysian people while they were in a foreign country.

Our country seems to be constantly immersed in cacophony and also experiencing frequent moments of anxiety and insecurity — not a day passes without disconcerting noises from the politicians and reports of serious crimes.

What’s happening?

We find ourselves bombarded daily by crude and offensive remarks from politicians on both sides of the fence. It’s impossible to read the newspapers or watch the news without being reminded of the occurrence of serious crimes.

Do you ever feel a great sense of frustration and desperation for being so helpless? I’m sure we all do.

How do we stem this downward slide into disaster?

Let’s get down to the fundamentals. The Holy Book has actually set the task of the government: do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless and the widow nor shed innocent blood in this place (Jeremiah 22:3)

Are our politicians setting examples of righteousness and justice before the people? We all have an answer — and that is we have failed miserably and opened a door that introduced widespread dissension into the land.

Then the second task — Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless and the widow.

How do we fare? Are we watching over the weak? You have your answer.

The third task — Do not shed innocent blood in this place.

Is justice, at all times, available in a courtroom — that the guilty are found out and the innocent freed and not wrongly punished?  You have the best answer.

Back to AirAsia X in South Australia (Adelaide) which I now consider home too as my daughter is staying there.

Phuket or Port Lincoln? Port Lincoln is surely in my bucket when I next visit Adelaide with confidence that a big-hearted mayor will do wonders to its town.

Unfortunately, I have yet to read the comments from the mayor of Kangaroo Island but if I were the mayor, I would, in a Malaysian way, have commented: Welcome to my island where we now have four police officers on duty. (When I visited in 2011, there were only two police officers)