How Costello sees the Australasian single economic market working

Q. What does an Australasian single economic market mean for New Zealand business?

A. Australian Treasurer Peter Costello says:

"The vision I have for a single market when it is accomplished is this. A company is formed in Auckland. By virtue of its incorporation in Auckland, it is recognised in Australia.

"It can raise money from the public in Australia on the basis of a prospectus that is lodged in New Zealand. It can trade seamlessly into the Australian market with goods and services. It can have its shares owned seamlessly by Australians - the taxation of dividends will be equal whether they are resident in Australia or New Zealand.

"If it gets large enough to infringe competition, the transtasman regulator will determine whether it threatens marketing. And goods and services will move seamlessly across the Tasman in much the same way they now move seamlessly across the Victorian and New South Wales border.

"We had to do all this with NSW and Victoria.When I was a student there was a uniform companies act of Victoria and a uniform companies act in NSW, there was the Victorian corporate affairs regulator and the NSW corporate regulator.

"I grew up in Victoria, and a big part of the business we used to do was to get Victorian companies recognised as foreign companies in NSW so they could trade across the Murray River. That was before I was in politics when I was a lawyer.

"Since I got into politics, I've spent an enormous amount of of time getting a national regulator appointed. Uniform laws, free commerce in a regulator sense and the vision that would be that trade in goods and services and the recognition of the regulatory system would be such that moving from Auckland to Sydney would be the same as moving from Melbourne to Sydney."