Forty two New Zealand staff of Chong Newztel are being laid off less than four months after Australian owned Media Monitors bought the business.

Most of them will leave by the end of the month after being let go by the new Australian owner.

Chong Newztel was previously owned by Christchurch businessman George Gould.

Media Monitors’ spokeswoman Karina Silva said from Sydney that the staff of Chongs Newztel had not been included in the acquisition.

“We offered the 55 staff three month contracts while we learnt about the business, and we have now offered 13 of that group full time positions.”

The Commerce Commission gave clearance for the takeover in a decision dated 19 February on an application filed on 22 January.

Staff are “angry and disappointed” at the scale of the redundancies says spokesman Douglas Andrews, who is also critical of the “indecent haste” of the approval.

Media Monitors New Zealand manager Sean Smith would not respond to suggestions that the merger had failed. “The business is going really well, and the people who are being laid off are on fixed terms contracts which are simply not being renewed,” he said.

Media Monitors’ application to the Commerce Commission refers to the opportunity to ‘build scale’ in New Zealand which would reduce costs, “largely through the reduction of overheads such as premises, infrastructure and staff.”

Media Monitors is based in Wellington while Chong Newztel operated largely from Auckland.

In its decision granting clearance for the merger, the Commission said, “Media Monitors advised that there would be some rationalisation, post acquisition, due to the resulting duplication between Media Monitors and Chong’s current operations.”

However a spokeswoman said that the Commission was not able to take undertakings such as employment into account in a merger or acquisition application.