Wellington, Aug 26 NZPA - Union leader Andrew Little says 100 new job cuts planned at Sydney-based publisher Fairfax Media Ltd will not only hurt New Zealand journalism, but also Fairfax's profits in this country.

The company publishes a large range of newspapers and magazines, including nine daily newspapers, and two Sunday papers on this side of the Tasman.

"Fairfax's proposed redundancies will be a huge blow to already strained newsrooms and to New Zealanders' democratic right to be properly informed about their country's major issues," said Mr Little, national secretary of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union.

Fairfax Media, which took over Australia's Rural Press in 2007, today announced 160 job cuts in NZ -- part of 550 jobs to go on both sides of the Tasman, equivalent to 5 percent of the company's workforce.

About 60 jobs in NZ have already gone, with another 100 expected to be lost in coming months.

Fairfax Media last week announced a 46.8 percent jump in annual profit , when it said net profit for the year ended June totalled $A386.9 million ($NZ479.7m).

Fairfax Media New Zealand reported a 2.5 percent increase in annual revenue and a 3.1 percent rise in operating earnings, and its online auction website TradeMe posted a 39 percent increase in profit to $NZ70.1m.

The company said at the time that further cost saving initiatives were in place for 2009.

But Mr Little today predicted the job cuts would ultimately hurt Fairfax's bottom line. "Fairfax claims these cuts are about adapting to new technologies and platforms but the way to deal with these changes is to increase the size of newsrooms and compete on the quality of news," he said.

"Further reducing newsrooms will only mean more of their already overworked journalists will struggle to give properly researched treatment to their stories.

"Their readers will not get the information they need to make informed decisions in their day to day lives."

It was particularly disturbing that this was happening in an election year, a time when people needed the best information possible to make important decisions. "A strong and well resourced fourth estate is a vital part of a functioning democracy but today Fairfax dealt a blow to all New Zealanders," he said.

According to an Australian media commentator, Margaret Simons, on Crikey.com, between 2006 and 2007 the top executives in the company were rewarded with a 45 percent increase in bonuses alone. The total in bonuses for the top eight executives went from $A1.5 million to $A2.2 million, on top of a 7.7 percent total increase in salaries for the top people.

Crikey.com said today's announcement was likely to prompt questions from workers about whether the company's directors would freeze their own remuneration.

New Zealand chief executive Joan Withers told NZPA some of the 160 jobs have already gone through "attrition" or through rationalisation already under way in centralising some sub-editing at newspapers.

Another 100 staff would leave the business in the coming months, Ms Withers said.

Divisional general managers would take responsibility for deciding where people would go from their sections of the business.

"We'll be finalising that process over the next couple of months," she said.

New Zealander David Kirk, Fairfax Media's chief executive, said the latest cost-cutting would position the company for the next stage of its "growth and development".

"Media companies fit for the modern media world need to be lean and agile," he said.

In 2006 and 2007 financial years the company had made $A52m in real cost reductions, and "synergies" associated with the merger of Fairfax Media and Rural Press and the acquisition of Southern Cross Radio produced a further $A53m in savings.

The new cuts will have a one-off cost of about $A50m ($NZ61.9m) for redundancy and associated costs, but about $A25m in annual savings.

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