Tasman leaders cement friendship

Australian Prime Minister John Howard and wife Janette pay their respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Picture / Mark Mitchell

New Zealand and Australia are such good friends that formalities such as toasting their joint head of state, the Queen, were dispensed with yesterday at a lunch for John Howard at Parliament and "friendship" toasted instead.

The informality continued in a speech by National Party deputy leader Gerry Brownlee, who welcomed the Australian Prime Minister with the thought that the relationship was like "a hill-billy marriage".

"Even if there was to be a divorce, they would remain cousins," Mr Brownlee said - standing in for leader Don Brash, who was at a transtasman CEOs' meeting.

Mr Brownlee extended the levity, saying the closeness of the two countries was also brought home to him by the closeness of the one-day cricket match on Saturday.

And he thanked Mr Howard, if the rumour were true, for making Billy Bowden an honorary Australian citizen after the New Zealand umpire gave at least three contested decisions in Australia's favour.

Mr Howard was suitably amused by the jokes but confined himself in his unscripted speech to serious issues, working himself up to a somewhat crusading tone.

He showed off his credentials as an international player - and the so-called US deputy of the United States - with George W. Bush-like exaltation on democratic freedom, followed by pronouncements on examples he found inspiring.

That was how he deftly reinforced the participation of Australia in the invasion of Iraq, without actually saying so, which would have offended the more dove-ish New Zealand Government.

Afghanistan's first democratic elections were mentioned in Mr Howard's sweep around the world, as was the "fantastic sight" in Ukraine where a fraudulent election result was overturned through domestic and international pressure.

"I haven't seen anything as terrific as that come out of that part of the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall and all those wonderful scenes we witnessed at the end of the 1980s."

The elections in the Palestinian territories brought to power "someone of good will and good purpose" and who accepted the right of Israel to exist.

"And finally and very importantly we saw those inspiring sights of Iraqis going to vote in the face of appalling intimidation," he said.

"And I haven't seen a more inspiring democratic sight for years than people holding aloft their fingers dipped in the ink that was needed."

Mr Howard returned to a familiar theme - the importance of a moderate Indonesia, the largest Islamic country in the world and the third largest democracy.

"If Indonesia succeeds, a blow is delivered against the cause of terrorism; if Indonesia fails, terrorism is able to point again to the failure of Western institutions and Western influences and to the practice of moderate Islam.

"We all have a lot at stake in ensuring that Indonesia is a success."

Mr Howard said the relationship between Australia and New Zealand was a very long-standing, natural and spontaneous one "that had its most vivid expression almost 90 years ago" at Gallipoli.

Helen Clark said it was appropriate that Mr Howard was the first visiting head of Government to visit the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at the national war memorial - it was his last assignment before leaving yesterday.

The day began with Mr Howard attending the New Zealand Cabinet meeting, where he was briefed on work towards the single economic market, the Working for Families package of measures set out in last year's Budget and New Zealand's welfare policies, including today's announcement of a single benefit.

During questions afterwards, Mr Howard said the driving reason to reduce the number of people on welfare was to get a higher participation rate in the workforce, not to punish beneficiaries.

Mr Howard said one effect of the low unemployment rate was that "we are running out of workers", a sentiment Helen Clark endorsed.

The leaders avoided a question about whether the labour shortage would affect immigration policies.