Greg Tourelle: Human crime wave sours transtasman accord

That normally cordial entente, the transtasman relationship, finished the year on a sour note. Why?

It has to be the Oscars. New Zealand's rout of 11 Academy Awards to Australia's tiny two. In the words of one Australian reporter, a tsunami of Oscars to New Zealand.

We are looking for reasons for the belated Christmas present the Australians are about to inflict upon us -- Patricia Toia, the New Zealand-born and Australian-raised human crime wave.

They are doubling up with a gift voucher -- their new maritime surveillance zone which infringes on New Zealand territory.

We'll give them the benefit of doubt on that one just for now. They have said Invercargill is not about to be subsumed by a koala navy and Kiwi foreign affairs minister Phil Goff seems happy with that assurance.

But he is not happy about Toia, who is waiting in Australia's Villawood detention centre to be deported to the land of her birth after chalking up an unenviable criminal history in Australia.

She has applied for refugee status, so she can stay in Australia, but that is a longshot on her part. Once deported, her Australian criminal record and disqualification from driving until 2053 will count for nought in New Zealand.

Toia doesn't want to go to New Zealand, New Zealand doesn't want her, but the Australians insist the 26-year-old must return to the land she left as a toddler.

The Oscars are the only feasible explanation for this fit of pique.

Otherwise, it was a similar year to 2003, with the countries working hard on trade issues but moving further apart on international security, the sporting rivalry being as intense as ever and the usual jousting over our cultural and language differences.

But the poor Aussies couldn't get over the success of Peter Jackson and The Lord of the Rings. They have had commendable success in Hollywood in the past decade salivate each year over the prospects of Academy Awards for "our Nicole". Usually two Oscars would be cause for celebration.

But not in 2004. So in answer to the hiding, they did their best to claim Whale Rider actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, who won a nomination for best actress, after her father revealed she was born in Western Australia.

"Keisha's an Aussie" roared the banner headlines.

But Keisha's parents -- her mother is a New Zealander -- took her to New Zealand when she was three and she was raised and educated in the land of the long white cloud.

She joins the New Zealand side of the rope in that famed trans-Tasman tug-of-war that features such luminaries as Jane Campion, Crowded House, Russell Crowe, Phar Lap and the pavlova.

Patricia Toia can anchor the Aussie side in the consolation plate.

In the words of Goff: "She talks like an Australian, she thinks like an Australian. She has no knowledge of New Zealand."

Ditch relations were so cobbery back in March when Helen Clark met John Howard in Canberra. It was a shaky time for both of them, with Howard under siege from Labor's new boy on the block, Mark Latham, and Clark suffering in the aftermath of Don Brash's Orewa race relations speech.

But despite being from different sides of the political fence, Howard and Clark presented a united front on their widening trade relationships and agreed to disagree over the Iraq war.

Both made huge advances on the trade front, with Australia signing its deal with the United States, New Zealand entering one with Thailand and holding talks with China and both countries agreeing to enter talks with the 10-member country Asean bloc.

By year's end, Howard had thrashed Latham in the October election and Clark was heading into New Zealand's 2005 election looking comfortable.

They were polls apart on international security, as the Asean meeting in November showed, with Howard refusing to sign a non-aggression pact with those countries and Clark saying New Zealand would look positively as doing so.

There were talks this year again on setting up a single market between the two countries. But Clark seemed lukewarm about an Australian push at a trans-Tasman leadership dialogue in May for a common border set-up akin to the European Union.

A common border looked briefly a good idea in August as the Australians swimmers plundered gold medals in the Athens Olympic pool. Australian television commentators tried hard not to say "our swimmers" but were swept overboard by a jingoistic tide.

New Zealanders in Australia caught a glimpse of Sarah Ulmer and Hamish Carter winning their golds, but missed out on the Evers-Swindell twins.

But they did revel in the Sally Robbins affair. Robbins, a power rower in the Australian women's eight, dramatically stopped rowing in their final, ruining what limited chance they had of gaining a medal.

There was a bitter fallout which remains unresolved four months later. Team members turned on Robbins, saying she had stopped rowing in the past and in the lead-up at Athens.

At a welcome-home ceremony in Sydney for the Olympic athletes, team-mate Catriona Oliver hit Robbins on the shoulder. Oliver received a two-year suspended ban from the sport.

It wasn't exactly a trans-Tasman moment but the whole issue polarised Australia and we keep a keen interest in their affairs.

- NZPA