A New Zealand politician has evoked the ANZAC fellowship spirit in an attempt to convince other leaders to ditch passport formalities across the Tasman.
In a pre-ANZAC Day statement, Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne described the Aussie and Kiwi relationship as ‘akin to that of a distant cousin’ before calling for free movement amongst citizens.
He said the two countries aren’t ‘close siblings’ like they are portrayed to be, mostly because of tension built up over the years.
Mr Dunne outlined the ongoing ‘snob factor’ where people from NSW see New Zealand are ‘not quite on par’ with the state.
Image: Neale Cousland/Shutterstock
Plus there was that time New Zealand rejected the invitation to join the Commonwealth of Australia during the federation in 1901.
Oh and don’t forget when the Keating government in the 1990s decided to notify New Zealand of the termination of the consideration of a single aviation market via a fax.
However, despite all that, Mr Dunne said there’s no peoples on the earth that are as similar as Australians and New Zealanders that have their differences but still ‘genuinely like each other’.
And according to a Tourism Industry Association New Zealand (TIA) report, if you ask an Australian what they think of travelling across the Tasman, they’d say it’s practically like a domestic holiday. Read on
Mr Dunne suggested adopting that attitude and the fellowship attitude of the ANZACs to reinvigorate the Australia-New Zealand relationship, starting with the ‘respective citizens free movements across our boarders’.
This would be done “without the need for a passport, as is increasingly the case in Europe”.
“The spectacular memorial gift to grace Wellington’s Pukeahu park is one thing but, Mr Abbott, a move on passports would be a much more enduring recognition of the bond we say we forged at Gallipoli.”
Peter Dunne, Internal Affairs Minister
The report released by TIA found the median stay for Aussies in New Zealand has fallen over the last decade from 11 to nine days.
TIA Chief Executive, Chris Roberts said the decline supports the hypothesis that Aussies now consider New Zealand as a domestic destination.