New Zealand and Australia: three years later: Allan Hawke reflects on his term as Australian High Commissioner in New Zealand.

• Author: Hawke, Allan
• Position: Speech

On 12 February 2004, some six months after arriving here, I delivered a speech to the NZIIA (1) about the role and issues that I would be pursuing during my term. I am grateful to the NZIIA for hosting my last major public address as High Commissioner. It provides the opportunity to reflect on some of what has happened on my watch.

Relationships between trans-Tasman heads of government have been fraught more often than not, and especially where the leaders have shared the same political philosophy. Prime Ministers Fraser and Muldoon illustrate that point. (2) Bob Hawke's and David Lange's relationship, which was also strained, deteriorated further over the ANZUS schism.

Although Jim Bolger and Paul Keating worked together productively on the international stage, Keating held strong views about New Zealand and its direction, believing that it had taken the NZ out of ANZUS as a result of its nuclear policy's impact on the United States alliance, and that New Zealand was attempting to get defence on the cheap. (3)

This is an appropriate juncture to record a telling point that escapes most people--the important part that personal relationships play in the scheme of things. (4) Commentators and analysts almost always overlook this dynamic, yet we know from personal experience the fundamental truth of this. I will return below to the current personal relationships that underpin our bilateral interactions.

I presented my Letter of Introduction to Prime Minister Helen Clark on 5 August 2003. During my first week, I was told about the New Zealand media's preoccupation with any hint of criticism from Australia or Australians. That wise piece of counsel was soon to be visited upon me in no uncertain way.

Early address

On 15 August 2003, during the watershed Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Auckland, I delivered what was supposed to have been a 'Chatham House Rule' address to the Australian Defence Strategic Studies course. (5) A little while later, a sub-editor from the Dominion Post rewarded me with an eyecatching headline 'Once were mates, now rivals' above the accompanying article.

While I never said that, the heading drew attention to my remarks that 'The ANZAC relationship is finely poised on the fulcrum. It can go one way or the other--in defence, in trade, in every way. That assessment will underpin my three year term here as High Commissioner'.

At the end of August, I returned to Australia for a ministerial meeting to mark the 20th anniversary of the Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement--more familiarly known to us as ANZCERTA or CER.

It became clear to me that the annual CER meetings between our Trade ministers, which had served as a vehicle for progressing the trans-Tasman relationship, had reached the point of diminishing returns.

That background led me to push three inter-related initiatives:

* establishment of an expanded dialogue between our ministers for Trade, Agriculture and Industry to replace the annual meetings between Trade ministers;

* the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum; and

* the Single Economic Market aspiration.

Before turning to these, some observations about the contemporary relationship are worth making.

Contemporary relationship

In essence, the trans-Tasman political relationship is in very good shape, epitomised by the example set by Prime Ministers Howard and Clark. The nature of the Costello/Cullen, Downer/Goff and other ministerial engagements demonstrate the golden era that we have been enjoying at the government-to-government level.

New Zealand has an active involvement with Australian Commonwealth and State ministers in various ministerial council meetings. Our parliamentary select committees often cross the ditch to learn from each other's experience. The Australia New Zealand School of Government initiative will also help the cause.

Trans-Tasman integration is proceeding on a range of fronts, including food and other standards, legal issues and the proposed Joint Therapeutic Products Agency, which we hope will serve as a catalyst for a generic governance model for other such bodies.

New Zealand still regards Australia as its principal ally and its 2005 Budget may take some heat out of the defence debate and associated foreign policy aspects.

In April 2005, Prime Ministers Howard and Clark were at Gallipoli to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Anzac landing. That pilgrimage served to remind us that our nations have long been bound together by geography, beliefs and interests. Indeed, 'No two nations on earth have shared a tradition of common values like the ANZAC tradition shared by the people of New Zealand and Australia'. (6) I changed this quote to the past tense advisedly. That is because I believe the relationship that we have taken so much for granted may be at risk as the current cohort of Aussies and Kiwis pass on the mantle of leadership, power and influence.

Fundamental divergence

For the next generation, the personal links built backpacking around Europe and South-east Asia are strong--but, do they see Australia and New Zealand as constructive economic and policy partners on the world stage, or just as good blokes and sheilas to share a beer with?

Helen Clark has observed on a few occasions that Australia and New Zealand are embarked on fundamentally different directions and the cultures of our two countries are moving further apart. The way our nations view the world and our place in it is also diverging. These trends, which commenced under David Image, have continued under successive governments, irrespective of their political persuasion. Mike Moore and Chris Trotter are among the commentators who have recently contributed their views to this matter. (7)

Paradoxically, that divergence is not reflected in our economic convergence, the extensive and growing personal links, or the thickening web of structural connections. Everywhere I go, I run across trans-Tasman connections--an anecdotal expression of the extent to which we are intertwined and the significant people-to-people interactions which characterise our relationship. With a...