Transtasman market only way, says Hawke

The case for a single transtasman economic market is "unarguable", says former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Australia and New Zealand, as two relatively small countries, had better prospects of meeting the challenges of a changing world together than apart, he told the Gateway to Australia conference in Auckland yesterday.

Hawke's reign as Prime Minister from 1983 to 1991 included the signing of the Closer Economic Relations (CER) agreement with the Muldoon Government in March 1983.

The experiences of both economies since then demonstrated the wisdom of abandoning outdated mind- sets and practices, Hawke said.

Today, 450,000 New Zealand citizens live in Australia and 60,000 Australians live in New Zealand.

New Zealand is Australia's fourth-largest market and Australia is New Zealand's largest.

Australia is the biggest investor in New Zealand and New Zealand is the sixth biggest across the Tasman.

Add to this a "massive" tourist flow and an "intense" sporting relationship, Hawke said.

The two Governments introduced a single economic market agenda last year which aims to create a "seamless" business market across both.

"The single transtasman economic market seems to me unarguable. It's logical and it's a desirable evolution from those facts of where we have come from and where we are."

Globalisation and the political transformation bringing the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China and India into the global market community meant the capacity of many governments to maintain a revenue base to provide their citizens with the services they expected was increasingly at risk, he said.

Multinational corporations could "jump over" what they saw as objectionable regulations and pit governments against each other.

The growth of international terrorism had created additional dilemmas for which there was no accumulated body of knowledge and experience to draw on.

Hawke said New Zealand and Australia also faced the same challenges, such as seeking free-trade agreements with China.

"All the imperatives that drove us to sign CER 20 years ago are still there," Hawke said.

"I would suggest that any sensible consideration of this new international environment must lead to the conclusion that it is even more important now to accelerate that process with the goal of fully establishing a transtasman single economic market."