Fresh impetus for common border

Prime Minister John Key says that passport-free transtasman travel is a long-term goal. Photo / Greg Bowker

CANBERRA - New Zealand and Australia may be ringed by a common border within which travellers could move without passing through customs or immigration controls.

After more than a decade in the wilderness, the prospect gained new life yesterday at a meeting between Prime Minister John Key and Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd.

Although still a distant and fraught proposal, Mr Key said moves to speed up existing airport controls agreed by the two leaders were a building block to an eventual single border.

The concept is tied to moves towards a single economic market that includes a massive boost for transtasman investment, and biosecurity measures that will free resources to tighten controls at New Zealand's porous seaports.

The two Prime Ministers also agreed to lift development co-operation in the Pacific, to investigate the possibility of forming a joint Anzac rapid-response force and to collaborate on the development of a greenhouse emissions trading scheme.

The travel arrangements announced during Mr Key's state visit to Canberra are essentially a catch-up for New Zealand, introducing the SmartGate electronic e-passport kiosks already installed across the Tasman.

The system, which uses facial recognition technology and data stored on microchip to identify passengers, enables travellers to pass through airport controls without identity checks.

It will operate from December at Auckland - where passengers will take only eight minutes to pass through - and next year at Wellington and Christchurch.

Mr Key said Air New Zealand had told the Government its passengers would eventually be able to check in and process passports electronically at domestic-style kiosks for transtasman flights, and pass through the other end without human intervention.

Researchers are also developing a system to x-ray baggage on departure and send it across the Tasman, allowing border-control officials three hours to examine it before arrival.

Mr Key said the move to electronic processing was an important step and he and Mr Rudd wanted to be able to demonstrate that something of value could be delivered to their citizens.

He said that despite obstacles - including the fact that 30 per cent of people flying the Tasman were not New Zealanders or Australians - passport-free travel within a common border was an eventual goal.

"It is easy to say and quite hard to do, but I think the announcements we've made today are a very positive step towards achieving that goal, and will make a discernable difference to travellers on both sides of the Tasman," Mr Key said.

"But ultimately it's not without the realms of possibility that there will be one point of entry [to New Zealand and Australia], and one point of exit."

Mr Rudd said a "large slab of progress" had been made in complex security- and immigration-related work, and there was more to be done.

"In terms of end-points [such as passport-free travel], it is important for us all to cross each hurdle one at a time," he said.

The biosecurity measures represent a shift away from New Zealand's present policy of 100 per cent x-ray screening, relying instead on individual profiling to identify potential risks.

Low-risk passengers will be moved through Customs more quickly, based on a trial that showed that only 4 per cent of bags contained risky items and that quarantine staff were able to identify low- and high-risk passengers.

Instant fines for quarantine infringements will be doubled, to $400.

Mr Key said the changes would improve biosecurity and allow resources to be diverted elsewhere.

The Prime Ministers also agreed on a protocol to be completed this year that will allow New Zealand companies to pump more than $1 billion into Australia without scrutiny by regulators.

The increase lifts Canberra's transtasman scrutiny trigger from A$100 million ($123 million) to A$953 billion ($1.1 billion). Only the United States has similar access.

Wellington's scrutiny trigger for Australian investors will be raised from $100 million to $477 million.

"This is important," Mr Rudd said, "because of the depth and intensity of the investment relationship between our economies, and the more seamless we can make that over time we believe to be in the common interests of both our peoples, both our business communities and both of our economies."

He and Mr Key had agreed to a more ambitious level for negotiations on a single economic market and would accelerate work on harmonising accounting standards and business reporting requirements. "The idea of a single economic market is one to which we are both committed."