KEY POINTS:
Helen Clark says new Australian Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd does not have a big ego - a big plus for maintaining a close transtasman relationship.
The Prime Minister said in that respect, Mr Rudd was similar to John Howard, the outgoing Coalition leader who was defeated on Saturday.
She acknowledged that Mr Howard had been committed to improving the transtasman relationship and that had been assisted by personal attributes.
"In many ways he was without ego in the relationship," she said last night from Europe.
"He was happy to work with New Zealand on a basis of relative equality and we reciprocated.
"What bedevilled the Australia-New Zealand relationship in the past was often a lot of ego. You don't have to name names but there have been a lot of big egos in politics on both sides of the Tasman which often got in the way of a relationship."
Rival Tasman leaders who have clashed include the late Sir Robert Muldoon and Malcolm Fraser, the late David Lange and Bob Hawke and Jim Bolger and Paul Keating.
Sir Robert, a National Prime Minister, joined the widespread Aussie-bashing that followed Trevor Chappell's notorious underarm bowl at Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1981.
"It was the most disgusting effort I can recall in the history of cricket, a game which used to be played by gentlemen," Sir Robert said. He made a point of expressing his views to Mr Fraser, who became so exasperated he once jumped on a hotel floor in Rotorua at 1.30am, knowing Sir Robert was in the room directly below, in the hope that he would wake him.
In his memoirs, Mr Hawke said Mr Lange "didn't really believe what he was saying" on nuclear disarmament. Mr Lange replied that Hawke's book "really needs to be read by a psychotherapist rather than a politician".
Mr Lange had another crack in his 2005 autobiography. Mr Hawke's language, he said, "was frequently obscene and he was steeped in the culture of mateship, which for me was never a good starting point . There was no end to his vanity."
Mr Keating upset Wellington in 1994 when he scuttled a planned open skies airlines policy. Mr Bolger fired back two years later after Mr Keating froze New Zealand out of his Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, remarking that "at some stage they're going to have to stop exporting uranium to make that a credible position".
Helen Clark said she saw in Mr Rudd someone "very much in the style of John Howard in that respect."
"I don't see a big ego. I see someone who is very task-focused, policy-focused, outcome-focused."
Helen Clark rejected a suggestion by National Party leader John Key that New Zealand would have to shout a little louder to be heard by Canberra, whose priorities lay in Asia.
The Governments were starting off on a good footing. Mr Rudd was a former diplomat and understood the importance of New Zealand.
"I don't think we are going to notice a difference in terms of the level of attention that we get in Canberra."
She also expected Australia to be "like the Australia of old" in returning to its former tradition of multilateral diplomacy and less unilateralism.
She agreed there were similarities between herself and Mr Rudd in approach.
"He's a policy wonk and I've always been in it for policy and outcomes and the changes you can make."
Apart from the major election promises such as reforming labour laws, she did not believe he would oversee fast change.
"Many small steps in the right direction add up over time to substantial change. That will be his approach."
Helen Clark said she texted Mr Rudd on election night to congratulate him and spoke to him and his deputy, Julia Gillard, from Uganda.
