Leaders likely to focus on the broader picture

Transtasman power brokers will look beyond Australia and New Zealand when they get together for the second leadership forum in April.

On the agenda will be issues confronting both nations as they grapple with changing global dynamics.

Politicians such as Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff are privately keen to broaden the forum agenda after criticisms last year's meeting was too narrowly focused on a purely business agenda.

Bank of New Zealand chairman Kerry McDonald, who will again co-chair the forum with Qantas chairman Margaret Jackson, would not divulge the specific agenda.

But McDonald did indicate that, though it would be a follow-up on single-market issues from last year, it would "evolve a bit". "It will look more at the wider context and some of the important non-economic things impacting on both countries."

Officials suggest the business and political elites should consider issues such as: The power balance as the rise of China forces the Southeast Asian group (Asean) into a defensive trade treaty with Australia and New Zealand; the impact of aging societies and the resultant implication for immigration; and the impact on New Zealand and Australia's joint trading fortunes as China, India and Brazil muscle in on agricultural markets.

By taking an external perspective the two nations would be able to better appreciate why it was necessary for them to pull closer together.

Last year's inaugural forum threatened to fall apart after Jackson mustered an Australian Inc team to push rapid movement towards a single market which was not initially matched in representation or ambition on the New Zealand side. The forum did get its act together. It endorsed the single market and recommended politicians go further and aim for a single transtasman market for goods and services ringed by a common border.

Both governments have rejected the notion of a common border for people at this stage. But Prime Minister Helen Clark floated the notion of a common market for goods in her discussions with Australian Prime Minister John Howard last week.

Transtasman working groups set up after last year's forum have since fleshed out the detail for the single market agenda.

The forum will be at Government House in Melbourne on April 29 and 30.