Brian Rudman: Transtasman marriage? But we're family

Just over a century ago, the six rambunctious Australian colonies tried to woo their exotic Maoriland sibling to the east into wedlock.

Our forebears gave them the slip, but the Aussies have never quite taken no for an answer. They even left an open invitation in their federal constitution in case we changed our minds.

As recently as 2006, the Australian Parliament's committee on legal and constitutional affairs turned on the charm again.

While acknowledging Australia and New Zealand were sovereign countries, the committee reported that "the strong ties between the two countries ... suggest that an even closer relationship, including the possibility of union, is desirable and realistic".

Prime Minister Helen Clark brushed the overture aside without comment, and Finance Minister Michael Cullen rejected even the idea of a common currency. Now Australian pollster UMR has canvassed the possibility, once more, of New Zealand becoming the seventh Australian state.

New Zealand politicians have been quick to diss the idea, but at grassroots, the response has been rather more open-minded.

A significant 24 per cent of Kiwis and 37 per cent of Australians immediately supported the proposal, with 41 per cent of Kiwis thinking it at least worth further discussion.

Of course a majority on both sides of the Tasman gave it the thumbs down, 52 per cent of Aussies and 71 per cent of New Zealanders saying no.

Like his predecessor, Prime Minister John Key has ducked for cover, leaving it for a spokesman to say he was not interested in commenting. Labour's Phil Goff had no such qualms, rejecting the proposal, saying it would risk our national identity.

While no fan of such a marriage myself, it seems a shame our leaders over the years haven't fluttered their eyelashes a little and teased out what the Aussies might have in mind by way of a dowry.

Given the size of our deficit, the ever widening wage gap, which the Key government is promising to close, and our discounted currency vis a vis the Australian dollar, it might have been sensible to know what was in the small print.

A straight dollar for dollar swap might have made the proposition more enticing. As would a loan of some up-and-coming cricketers.

It was interesting that Kiwis in the survey, whether or not they supported the proposition, felt their material wellbeing would improve by the marriage, but thought the more intangible aspects of being a New Zealanders would suffer.

Top of the "plus" list was ease of travel to Australia, 65 per cent saying it would be better. Almost as many - 64 per cent - reckoned defence would be better too, and 43 per cent said the economy would benefit.

As to the negatives, top of the "worse" list was race relations, with 60 per cent of Kiwis saying it would suffer, then culture (51 per cent), values (41 per cent), and environment (39 per cent).

Peter Slipper, the federal MP for Fisher, Queensland, who chaired the 2006 committee hearings which proposed marriage, said on TVNZ's Q + A current affairs show on Sunday that a possible solution might be "a confederation with equal rights on either side of the ditch".

He said he could understand why New Zealanders didn't want to become a seventh state.

He pointed to the European Union and said it wasn't a question of New Zealand losing its identity.

"If the countries of Europe which spent most of the 20th century fighting one another are able to have a common currency, how much easier should it be for us to have one across the ditch?"

We already have all sorts of mutual deals, such as the transtasman travel arrangement, closer economic relations agreements, trans-tasman mutual recognition arrangement and single economic market pact, but on both a political and economic level, complete union has never been seen as an answer to whatever the question is.

On the economic level, there are even those who fear that linking our business and political systems closer would only hasten the flow of our best and brightest to the regional commercial hubs of Melbourne and Sydney.

What proponents seem to ignore is the yuck factor that goes with siblings marrying. To me that is the biggest obstacle. The 2006 Australian report noted "Australia and New Zealand have a uniquely close and abiding relationship borne of shared history and longstanding connections."

This is self-evident as we were both twin British colonies, living side by side. For nearly two centuries, we have scrapped, whined to mummy and made up. Then scrapped again.

We're so alike that for the past 50 years at least, both of us have tried and failed to cut our final apron strings with Mother Britain.

Like young adults living at home with their parents, neither can tell Mummy Queen she's no longer head of the family.

It's this "uniquely close" sibling relationship that creates the ultimate taboo on a transtasman marriage. We're already family. Let's leave it at that.

To talk of marriage, or even civil union, sounds like incest.