Anzac dollar dies

Friday 29th November 2002

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The Anzac dollar is dead, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said yesterday.

"You can't get a single currency because the politics aren't right," foreign affairs and trade secretary Simon Murdoch told a Wellington briefing.

He said there was scope for more harmonisation of business law across the Tasman in response to a question from
TelstraClear's government relations manager, Rose Hart.

But there were too many political obstacles on both sides of the Tasman for a full currency union, he added.

"And you won't get a customs union because we've got a lot of the advantages of that already."

But Mr Murdoch said the two countries could well move closer to becoming a single market and he expected progress next year.

The Closer Economic Relations agreement with Australia was signed in 1983 and the 20th anniversary is seen as being something of a "hook" that a raft of new moves could be hung on.

"There has been a harmonisation of the rules that businesses in both places can operate by there is now a single food authority and we're talking about a single therapeutic goods regime."

The moves to harmonise the business laws should cut compliance costs for businesses, he said.

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