KEY POINTS:
All Black supporters' trips to Stadium Australia for a Bledisloe Cup decider should become a whole lot easier if the much-debated joint Australian-New Zealand dollar comes to pass.
Fans will pay Australian airline Qantas the posted dollar price, rather than having to factor in currency exchange rates.
They will buy beer and chips at the ground with money they took out at the ATM at Auckland Airport, and when they get home they can spend the money they won from Australian bookies (by backing an All Black win) again without worrying about exchange rates.
But a dollar usable on both sides of the Tasman seems many years away. Every year, it seems, economists toy with the idea of a currency union but each year politicians pour cold water on the scheme.
A survey released at the weekend at the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum in Sydney showed 49 per cent of New Zealanders favoured a joint currency, as did 41 per cent of Australians.
Australian Treasurer Peter Costello said recently such a move was years away and it would be up to New Zealand to adopt the Australian currency. Yesterday Prime Minister Helen Clark said a currency merger was not on the agenda and Finance Minister Michael Cullen said such a move would see New Zealand lose control over monetary policy.
National leader John Key has said the idea is worth consideration, and yesterday United Future agreed.
However, New Zealand First said a currency merger would make New Zealand nothing more than an Australian state.
House of Travel retail director Brent Thomas said tourists from Europe tended to visit Australia and New Zealand. International and transtasman tourists would favour a single currency, he said.
"It makes it a hell of a lot easier having a single currency because it's just dollar for dollar and people know exactly what it is going to cost them. There's no surprises in the Visa bill when people get home."
Adventure tourism, especially skiing, could be a huge winner from a currency union, with New Zealand's mountains becoming more accessible to Australians, Mr Thomas said. Professor Gary Hawke, head of Victoria University's School of Government, said he doubted there was any real appetite for an Anzac dollar at the moment.
"I don't think most people would care whether there was a common Australia-New Zealand approach to things like the currency."
Don Brash, a former Reserve Bank Governor and a former National Party leader, said currency union had positives and negatives.
He said many people, particularly in the manufacturing sector, favoured an Anzac dollar but that was not really on offer.
"The Australians are not about to abandon the Australian dollar in favour of a new currency, so it's quite different from the European Union situation where you have 12 countries, three of them major economies, each one giving up their currency in favour of a new one."
The question was whether New Zealand should adopt the Australian dollar, a decision which would have emotional and political ramifications, Dr Brash said. That might be overcome by retaining the artwork on New Zealand's coins and bank notes, but making them legal tender in Australia.
The Anzac Dollar
Upside
* Eliminates added cost of currency transactions and differing exchange rates.
* Ensures price transparency between the two countries.
* Increases certainty regarding inflation and monetary policy.
Downsides
* Lose ability to set own monetary policy.
* Sharp downturn in Australian economy could hurt New Zealand.
* Loss of national identity.
