Hugh Templeton: Leaders must work together to restore Anzac bonds

Photo / NZME.

Opinion

More than a breach of the Anzac Treaty, the exiling of New Zealand-Australians to Christmas Island is an astonishing breach of the Anzac spirit. History is stronger than mateship: blood and geography have made a family of Australians and New Zealanders.

When we negotiated the Australia and New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Agreement (CER) in 1982, New York Times columnist Jimmy Reston advised us, "I am for togetherness". The spirit of togetherness is needed to restore the practice of decency now being tested.

The solution is straightforward and logical. Such an act could not happen if our two nations had the political relationship our economic relationship demands. The negotiators of CER intended it to grow into an Anzac customs union and single market. Two leaders as focused and smart as John Key and Malcolm Turnbull can do away with the Christmas Island experience and give half a million New Zealand-Australians and a smaller but significant number of Australian-New Zealanders their full rights by following this path.

It requires hard work - but fortunately not for Prime Ministers. They hand the task to their ministers and officials, many of whom have pondered in amazement the delay in transtasman integration. In particular, the failure to move in 2005 when wide agreement had been secured from both business communities to further economic union.

Perhaps delay is not surprising given our joint remoteness and its ability to deflect external political pressure. Australian nationalism emerged to unify the Australian colonies into a new nation barely a century ago. The logic of New Zealand involvement was clear - demonstrated by our participation in the preliminary conferences and the inclusion of a New Zealand option in the Australian constitution. Richard Seddon's 1200 reasons for staying out are less valid now we have left the days of sea travel.

Exile to a latter-day Devil's Island contradicts the history and spirit of an enduring relationship. This year is the centenary of that relationship. In appalling conditions, the Anzacs found a unity beyond the artifices of national boundaries, and sustained it in Belgium and France, and 25 years later in North Africa and the Pacific. We gave it unity in the first Anzac Treaty, infuriating some in the American military.

Each decade since we have acted together in international politics and economics, whether in Iraq today or in the 1960s when great leaders Jack McEwen and John Marshall responded to European developments with the first Nafta treaty.

We should not forget that all through our joint history, people have moved without hindrance between Australia and New Zealand. How else would we have shorn the sheep, or mined the gold and coal? The existence of such a clear, natural right perhaps seemed to make the case for closer relationships less urgent. The requirement for passports was introduced only in the 1970s. Others - such as the European Union - followed our example.

How things have changed. Australian residents believed they were living in an Australasian community. Having served their time, without warning they are treated equally with foreign aliens. Such exile is redolent of imperial Rome. It runs counter to the instincts and practice of any British polity founded on a tradition of habeas corpus, let alone fair play.

The answer lies with our governments. They can correct a dire situation by completing the process which has been running since the 19th century and further integrating, economically and socially, our two nations. What an opportunity to make history and correct injustice.