Clark cosies up for fresh start with Australia

By GREG ANSLEY

CANBERRA - Prime Minister Helen Clark and a high-powered business delegation arrive in Australia today hoping to lose much of the baggage that continues to dog transtasman relations.

High on the mission's agenda will be the formal burying of misadventures such as the Ansett collapse and the failed merger of the two stock exchanges, and the promotion of a new age in which New Zealand will be seen - hopefully - as a sophisticated business partner rather than a grower and purveyor of sheep.

The mission will also be pushing the concept of building sufficient critical mass between the two economies to jointly take on global markets, based on a combined GDP almost as large as that of the entire Association of South East Asian Nations.

"Business beyond Australasia increasingly sees us as one market," Clark said.

"Working together, we can secure greater economic benefits for both countries."

Wellington also wants to develop regular meetings between a broader range of ministers involved in bilateral and third-country issues, including the agriculture, industry, commerce, environment and science portfolios.

The Government is already developing the Australia sub-group of its external relations and defence committee to co-ordinate New Zealand's transtasman efforts, and may reopen some of the consulate-generals in major cities outside Sydney that were closed during cost-cutting in the 1990s.

Clark will meet Prime Minister John Howard and the leaders of New Zealand's three biggest Australian markets, Premiers Bob Carr of New South Wales, Steve Bracks of Victoria and Peter Beattie of Queensland.

The 22-member business delegation will be led by Telecom NZ chief executive Theresa Gattung and includes such heavyweights as Air NZ chairman John Palmer, Fonterra deputy chairman Greg Gent, Montana Wines managing director Peter Hubscher and Fletcher Building chief executive Ralph Waters.

Other businesses range from biotechnology firms A2 Corporation and Genesis Research & Development to branding consultant Designworks, Jade Software, fashion designers Karen Walker and Trelise Cooper, record producer Kog Transmissions and clothing, tourism, boatbuilding and tourism operators.

The aims of the mission - the first of its kind to visit New Zealand's largest trading partner - are to calm some of the Australian nerves jangled by the Ansett collapse, to address some of the longer-term issues and rebuild New Zealand's profile as as an advanced, sophisticated exporter.

The Government's Australia strategy recognises that all is not as well as it should be, and that business risks are increasing because of the integration of the two economies and the greater risks of corporate decisions in one country resounding in the other.

Government policy decisions in one capital are also increasingly felt in the other through mutual recognition arrangements, the development of transtasman agencies (notably the Australia-New Zealand Food Authority) and other arrangements.

Wellington acknowledges a distinct lack of enthusiasm in Canberra for a new, energetic, round of transtasman integration, in part because of apathy and competing interests elsewhere, including the pursuit of free trade deals with the United States, Singapore and Thailand.

But the strategy notes: "It also reflects a wariness on the part of some Australians of taking integration too far and making Australia further vulnerable to New Zealand."

Wellington cannot count on the 400,000 or so New Zealanders living in Australia, who it says do not readily identify publicly with their homeland and who reflect the ambivalence of the expatriate, nor on exporters who may prefer not to brand themselves as New Zealand suppliers.

New Zealand's voice in corporate Australia is also weak, despite the number of Australian businesses with large transtasman interests and New Zealanders in senior management.

"We have few business friends at court and no effective mechanism for mobilising their support," the strategy paper says.

The mission will be pushing hard to change this with meetings, receptions, working breakfasts and lunches hosted by the Transtasman Business Circle, Westpac chief executive David Morgan, the Council for the Economic Development of Australia, Air NZ and state premiers.

Clark will also be pushing New Zealand's case with some of Australia's largest and most influential broadcasters and journalists.