New Zealand Aussie bubble should be fast tracked

One of the many resets that should occur when the country comes out of lockdown is our relationship with Australia.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said this week he was discussing the opening of the trans-Tasman border with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as both countries were on "similar trajectories" in their response to Covid-19.

Ardern's office has confirmed talks have begun at an officials level but clearly much must be nailed down and negotiated before jets are regularly crossing the Tasman again. Such moves require a lot of political will and it's possible the whole thing is a bit of a media initiated beat-up. "Let's ask Scomo if he will open the border to Kiwis" sort of thing.  

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Relations between Australia and New Zealand have been a little testy of late. The fact Morrison seems a bit Trumpy compared to our saintly Prime Minister encourages people to make odious comparisons but Australian prime ministers usually have good relationships with their New Zealand counterparts whatever their respective persuasions.

Then there is Australia's obnoxious policy of deporting New Zealand-born criminals, many of whom have been brought up in Australia and have made their lives there.

New Zealand has to pick up the pieces when these misfits arrive in the country, often to commit crimes and get involved in the gang scene.

Cynics might suggest that Morrison is keen to get the border controls normalised so he can get the deportations back in full swing. Maybe they never stopped and some hotel somewhere is full of deported New Zealanders having a fine time in quarantine.

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As disputes between states go, the deportations are not an insurmountable one and much is to be gained from the Tasman neighbours opening their borders to each other.

Our $12 billion tourism industry needs all the help it can get and Aussies make up a surprisingly sizeable proportion of overseas visitors. About 1.5m Australians visit New Zealand each year with about 60 per cent coming here on holiday. The other 40 per cent come to visit family and friends and inject a fair amount into the economy as well. About 1.4m Kiwis travel to Australia each year.

One thing that tourism operators need, especially those in the south, is a good ski season. Slopes thick with Aussies and, of course, domestic tourists,will help the hospitality industry in Queenstown and other areas survive and keep people employed until visitor numbers creep back up again.

New Zealanders could repay the favour by having their winter holidays in areas like Queensland's Gold Coast. Tourist operators would no doubt work hard to customise their packages for their New Zealand or Australian markets.

The appetite for travel post-Covid-19 is unknown but if travel insurers, governments and tourist operators get together to assuage concerns about getting stuck or sick, it might be enough to whet cautious appetites.

Australians and New Zealanders were great fans of the cruise liner experience. Could the Sea Princess be replaced by famous land cruises on Aotearoa Queen or Australia Diamond?

It shouldn't be that hard to get back to 600,000 Australian tourists especially if Australians with a mind to travel overseas haven't got anywhere else to go.

No doubt such travel would have its risks but with proper monitoring, contact tracing and testing, the risks would be minimal. Co-operation on tourism could lead to a combined approach to other business and sports initiatives to keep the two countries working.

After the Covid-19-free Anzacs have ironed out any travel difficulties, other countries with the same success in fighting Covid-19 could be added to the bubble. For instance countries like South Korea, Japan and Singapore all have a good record suppressing the virus and could be eased into the bubble.

In the meantime we can keep arguing about which trans-Tasman neighbour coped best with Covid-19 and which country had the better strategy. Maybe neither of us should be too smug. After all we live in big open countries that are sparsely populated and have advanced health systems. A high standard of education and trust in our institutions has also helped.

We also like to ship our old people into rest homes and retirement villages and are not particularly demonstrative. We really should have done a lot better than many other countries.

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In one area of the Covid-19 catastrophe, Australia is streets ahead of New Zealand – protecting its media. Stuff this week got little of the Government's $50 million media rescue package so I'm feeling a bit grumpy about that.

Where the Aussies are doing better is in making platforms like Google and Facebook share the revenue they get from using news content they do nothing to generate. The two platforms hoover up most of the advertising revenue available to support the mainstream media.

In Australia, the various parties were unable to agree on a voluntary code, so on Monday the government switched tacks and required a mandatory code to be developed by July, with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's oversight. It will be enforced by law, with penalties for lack of compliance.

Whether it works is another matter. Tourism is easier. By June/July, Australians could be enjoying ski activities in Queenstown while New Zealanders enjoy some great deals on the wine  trail in the Barossa Valley.

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Stuff