Kia ora tatou katoa
I have come here today to pay tribute to the friendship between our two nations and to offer a very special tribute to the people of New Zealand for your overwhelming support during Australia's summer of hardship.
I'd like to make particular mention of the members of the New Zealand Civil Defence team, who join us here today, and say a very personal thank you for your efforts.
You brought mateship.
You brought comfort.
And your work won't be forgotten.
We, too, will not forget the 29 men who never came home from the Pike River mine.
They live on in our hearts and our memories.
And at a time of hardship and grief, Australia will always be there to help.
Always.
Friends,
This is my first visit to New Zealand as Australian Prime Minister.
I know you've had some tough times lately.
Not only with the tragedy at Greymouth.
But the Canterbury earthquake.
And the after-effects of the global economic downturn.
But I want to say unambiguously that New Zealand is a success story.
And each of you should be very, very proud to be part of that story.
New Zealand has built a modern, competitive economy linked to Asia and open to the world.
An economy with a global reputation in clean energy.
Tourism.
Fine food and wine.
Film and creative industries.
Financial services.
You brought the world to your door with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and told the story of a vibrant, clean and green New Zealand, a story that many understood for the first time through the wonders of these films.
Friends,
Our countries have so much shared history that there is a sense of the familiar when an Australian steps onto New Zealand soil.
Of course there is the Anzac story, that will never diminish in its power to move and humble us.
Or the incredible story of Australia and New Zealand competing at the 1908 and 1912 Olympics as a unified team.
And there are our shared economic achievements, with the most significant peace-time event in our relationship being the signing of the Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement.
CER very appropriately came into effect on New Year's Day in 1983.
Appropriate because it was a new beginning.
With CER, both our countries began to unroll the protectionist postwar settlement that had kept us so safe for so long.
But the protectionist embrace was a delusion.
The delusion that any small economy can shelter itself from the forces and benefits of change.
We can't.
And we shouldn't.
In a dynamic world, we compete and we fight and we succeed.
There is no other way.
That is why CER is so important.
It is a ‘living agreement' - an agreement we continue to enhance and expand.
Australia and New Zealand's successful economic integration has become a model for other countries.
The cross-pollination between our two nations constantly refreshes the ideas, innovation and expertise in our business sectors.
Our closer ties have given us, among other things, a free market in exports and opened up our service markets.
The Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Arrangements have freed up the movement of goods and professionals.
And both our governments are committed to the Single Economic Market agenda which reduces the regulatory barriers for industry.
The progress of a single economic agenda will forge even greater business cooperation and investment across the Tasman. a perfect example of how we will keep breathing ‘life' into this agreement.
We're also doing what we can to make travel from Australia to New Zealand more like travel among the Australian states: largely borderless.
That's important because at any one time, over half a million Kiwis are living in Australia.
And each year, around one million Australians visit New Zealand.
We need to make their journeys as seamless as possible.
Friends,
CER is a success story in anyone's language.
It has been the springboard for the 8 per cent growth oftwo-way goods trade between Australia and New Zealand since 1983.
Trans-Tasman trade is worth around A$21billion orNZ$27 billion a year.
More Australian businesses export to New Zealand than to any other country.
And New Zealand's top export market is Australia.
This week we'll add another dimension, with the introduction of the CER Investment Protocol which I will sign with Prime Minister Key tomorrow.
This Protocol will further free up investment in each other's economies...
Australia is increasing from $231 million to just over $1 billion the threshold under which the New Zealand investment will not, in nearly all circumstances, require screening.
This puts New Zealand on par with the United States in enjoying the most liberalised access possible to the Australian investment market.
And New Zealand is making a similarly significant change to its threshold - from NZ$100 million to nearly NZ$500 million.
I'm also delighted to working with Prime Minister Key, and our eight other partners to bring an expanded Trans Pacific Partnership into being.
Building a free trade zone that includes the United States, Chile, Malaysia and Singapore will be major development.
One of the biggest steps since CER itself.
Prime Minister Key and I will work to make the expanded Partnership a reality by the time of APEC this year.
CER only tells a fraction of the story about the economic relationship between our two countries.
The success of our business partnership is built on cooperation, interdependence, a healthy competitiveness and a deep and abiding mutual respect and trust.
A trust that has been earned over 200 years.
Today, our bilateral agenda remains squarely focused on taking advantage of the fact that we are natural markets and partners for each other.
These reforms stand us in good stead to take advantage of opportunities in the changing global environment.
But complacency is not an option as we face new challenges in a changing global economic environment.
The global economic recovery remains fragile, with highly uneven growth across different regions and a number of significant vulnerabilities.
Much of the world's activity has been generated by a strong recovery in emerging market economies where capacity is relatively tight.
There are continuing concerns over high levels of public debt in many advanced economies, particularly in Europe.
Inflation is accelerating in emerging market economies, driven partly by rising food and other commodity prices.
And rapid capital flows into emerging markets could be destabilising.
International cooperation is needed to respond effectively to these global challenges, many of which are being addressed through the G20 where Australia is playing a key role.
This work complements efforts underway in other forums including the WTO, the East Asia Summit and APEC, in which Australia and New Zealand are both strong advocates for reform.
New Zealand entered a recession before the GFC and while still facing many challenges, I note that your economy has started to turn the corner.
It is crucial that both our economies maintain ambitious post-GFC reform agendas to keep productivity and competitiveness high.
When you get economic reform right, you fuel the drivers of sustainable long term economic growth.
Friends,
Australia emerged from the GFC with lower debt, stronger growth and lower deficits than the major developed economies.
Australian banks are among the world's strongest, with the “big four” AA-rated, the highest ranking available.
We are also uniquely positioned to benefit from one clear consequence of the global recession; the rebalancing of growth towards the Asian region.
Major Asian economies value us because we are strongly competitive in a number of key commodities, we offer security of supply and our public finances are rock solid.
This is confirmed by our excellent sovereign credit ratings
Our extremely low levels of net public debt.
And our mature financial services sector, which boasts assets of almost $4.5 trillion under management.
To put it simply:
- Conditions for business and investment in Australia are very strong.
Last year the World Bank ranked Australia as one of the most business-friendly economies in the world.
Like the New Zealand Government, my Government is committed to returning our Budget to surplus as a matter of priority.
We are committed to sound fiscal rules that will see this happen by 2012-13 - a commitment on which I will not waiver.
Of course this summer's unprecedented floods and devastating category 5 cyclone have given rise to obvious economic consequences.
The Reserve Bank of Australia estimates that these events will subtract around half a percentage point from GDP in 2010-11.
Of course the rebuild effort will add to GDP again in time.
In parallel, there will be strong growth in mining investment and high commodity prices.
Indeed there are currently $380 billion worth of mining projects underway or in the pipeline.
We welcome that and we celebrate it.
It is an historic opportunity.
At the same time, we know there must be opportunity beyond the boom, and that means ongoing reform and discipline to position us for the future.
A future based on a high-skill, high-tech, clean energy economy based on skills and innovation.
To take us there, my Government has committed to a broad ranging agenda to boost the productive capacity of the economy.
We are investing in the traditional critical infrastructure of rail, roads and ports and I know a number of Kiwi companies are benefitting from this work including Fulton Hogan and Beca.
We are building the transformative infrastructure of the 21st Century, the National Broadband Network which includes the structural separation of Telstra, itself an outstanding instance of micro-economic reform.
We are delivering a seamless national economy to reduce red tape caused by inter-state barriers.
An ambitious new agenda of training and workforce participation.
Market-driven reforms to bring greater transparency and contestability in health, education and water.
And - most significantly of all - we seek to follow New Zealand in putting a price on carbon an outcome that will not only allow us to meet our environmental obligations but also drive decades of innovation and investment that will fundamentally redraw the shape of the Australian economy.
To conclude Friends,
In all of these decisions, Australia and New Zealand walk the reform road together.
We have done so for nearly three decades.
And we must continue to do so.
We need to encourage each other in the task of reform because that task is never easy and there are always temptations to pause and turn away.
I have felt those pressures myself, but I have and intend to stand firm against them because any short-term benefit gained by giving way is outweighed by the long-term losses we suffer.
Closer Economic Relations and the reform mentality that made it possible have served us well.
We are island nations to whom nobody owes a living.
If we gain any advantage in the world, it is because we fight for it and we earn it.
There is no other way, except to say this:
We can achieve more together than we can alone.
A strong New Zealand is good for Australia.
A strong Australia is good for New Zealand.
Let's build a new generation of closer economic relations and face the Asia Pacific Century together.