KEY POINTS:
New Zealand politics has produced some memorable lines over the years which have become part of the fabric of Australian political discourse.
Among the sharper observations are two serrated remarks from opposite sides of the political aisle. First, Prime Minister "Piggy" Muldoon was once asked his view of his opposite number, David Lange. Pausing momentarily, Muldoon was dismissive: "Oh, shallow as a bird bath."
Prime Minister Lange had an equally cutting tongue. Quizzed on his view of his former Finance Minister, Roger Douglas, being appointed to advise the Polish Government on free market economics, Lange replied acidly that he would have thought the Poles had already suffered enough.
These penetrating observations aside, coverage of New Zealand politics on the other side of the Tasman is often reduced to an image which tends to raise eyebrows here.
Australian cynics might suggest mischievously that it was entirely appropriate for Prime Minister Helen Clark to be introduced to a splendidly big-horned sheep in the forecourt of the parliamentary precincts but Muldoon seemed an odd choice for The Narrator in the Rocky Horror Show.
Other memorable moments have included Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer displaying his skills on a trumpet and Finance Minister Ruth Richardson endeavouring to master a trampoline.
Now Australian politics also tends to produce such silliness. But by and large, this is at the margins (see Senate Independents).
Nonetheless, informed Australian observers of New Zealand understand that the outcome of the general election on November 8 does matter in this country. It matters in all the diversity of the transtasman relationship: politics and Government, economy and national security.
Sport, which is of course often seen as the most important bond between the two countries and our two peoples, will fortunately remain largely unaffected, regardless of whether Labour or National emerges triumphant.
To begin, relations between Canberra and Wellington are in sound order. Governments of both persuasions in both countries have worked hard at this. Helen Clark enjoyed a productive working relationship with John Howard.
If anything, this has improved since Kevin Rudd and the Labor Government were elected last November. It's easy to take this for granted but it should be recalled that even governments of supposedly similar philosophical persuasion, as reflected in Hawke/Labor and Lange/Labour configurations, can fall out, as occurred in the middle 1980s over US nuclear ship visits and over the emerging Libyan presence in the South Pacific.
According to some assessments, New Zealand has just slipped into a recession. Australian growth has also slowed and may well slow further, in the light of global developments, but our two economies are interrelated and a recession across the Tasman has a consequent impact here.
Closer Economic Relations (CER) should be considered one of the great success stories of both Australian and New Zealand diplomacy. A transtasman trade annually of $16 billion in goods and $6 billion in services is impressive by any criteria. And CER has contributed to the economic health and opportunity index for tens of thousands of people in both countries.
A recession in New Zealand, therefore, means fewer opportunities for Australian and New Zealand business and a likelihood of more New Zealanders crossing the Tasman for better opportunities in Oz. Already, there are some 350,000 Kiwis in this country. Overwhelmingly, they've settled easily as fine citizens and have contributed much to our national wellbeing, even if their real loyalties emerge at All Blacks' or Warriors' games or during cricket, sailing, basketball and netball seasons.
Strategically, too, New Zealand has always made a difference to Australia. Australian defence planners routinely assume a high degree of co-operation with their New Zealand counterparts in the event of a serious threat to national security. And the war in Afghanistan has again underlined the value of New Zealand military qualities. Continuity in strategic co-operation between the two countries retains a real significance.
Now, about as many Australians understand the New Zealand two-way voting system as New Zealanders understand Australia's exhaustive preferential system. For Australians watching a New Zealand election, therefore, there is an added interest in trying to calculate the results from the two streams. How anyone can predict the shape of the next Government of New Zealand, with its two-tier voting and horse trading over coalitions, defies the imagination. It's a little bit like trying to predict the direction of New Zealand First policies a week before a release of a manifesto. It's all in the lap of the gods.
Some years ago I was in New Zealand on a rugby tour with my younger son. It was during an election campaign and the front page issue was the fact that someone had defaced posters of Prime Minister Helen Clark in downtown Auckland by drawing on them. To someone used to the hard-ball nature of Australian politics, this seemed almost gentle.
Gentle or otherwise, New Zealand politics is not currently on the front page here and John Key is utterly unknown. But after November 8, New Zealanders can be certain that Australians will view the results with a great deal of interest.
