Could airport departure cards soon be a thing of the past?

A New Zealand passenger departure card is completed. Photo / Greg Bowker

Departure card that has to be filled out by every passenger leaving New Zealand may soon be a thing of the past.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called them a "bugbear" when talking to a business audience in Sydney.

"I will be talking to my ministers of Statistics [James Shaw] and Customs [Meka Whaitiri] with a view to advancing this," she said.

Australia got rid of them last year.

She made her comment in a speech to about 1000 business people and delegates from the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum, which has called for their removal.

She said she and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull were both committed to improving the TransTasman travel experience.

New Zealand and Australia are each other's biggest source of tourists with about 47,000 flights carrying 7 million passengers each year back and forth across the Tasman.

An Auckland Airport spokeswoman said: "We welcome anything that improves and speeds up the experience through the airport for our customers."