Editorial: Anzac spirit runs long and deep

Quarantine-free travel between New Zealand and Australia is restored with unforgettable scenes at airports on both sides of the Tasman. Photo / Michael Craig

EDITORIAL

The transtasman bubble revealed in emotional pictures and words this week how deep our relationship runs with Australia.

Families and friends sobbed with joy in each others' arms at airports from Wellington to Melbourne, from Auckland to Sydney. It seems everyone knows someone who is winging across to renew ties after 12 months of forced estrangement.

We often evoke the shared blood spilled at Anzac Cove - the site of World War I landing of the Australasian troops on April 25, 1915 - as the origin of our shared destiny. But it fathoms much deeper as author and historian Nigel Robson found, with troops rubbing shoulders in conflicts stretching back 122 years to the South African War.

As with all relationships, there are rocky patches. Five Eyes is strained as our taniwha dances with a dragon while the kangaroo, eagle, beaver and lion look on in resentment; we continue to be vexed by the 501 deportees, hardened criminals who are not products of Aotearoa; our trade relationship has struggled, and we continue to bicker beyond goodheartedly about pavlova and Crowded House.

But at the end of the day, our journeys have often been shared as outlanders from a small corner of the world. We are stronger than the sum of the two when set against a common foe.

Despite the latest Perth lockdown, our transtasman bubble has been a vanguard to the world seeking a way out of the Covid impasse. Anzacs are once more pushing the advance forward.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.