Kiwis want the Aussie dollar
New Zealand has again have raised the prospect of a single currency with Australia, with more Kiwis backing plans to adopt the Aussie dollar as their legal tender, with 49% of New Zealanders favouring a single currency compared with only 29% seven years ago.
With the issue being raised at a political and business leadership forum held in Sydney, former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer has suggested that the common currency be called the ‘zac’, with NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark also agreeing that should a monetary union be agreed upon, the most likely outcome would be that NZ would adopt the Australian currency.
However, she added that would mean the Reserve Bank of Australia could drive New Zealand’s currency up and down for factors completely unrelated to the Kiwi economy, saying in media reports, “The convergence of trying to bring the two together could be quite rough on the smaller party”.
Miss Clark said an Anzac dollar had never been on offer and it had always been clear there would be one currency, the Australian dollar, adding, “If you put that question to Kiwis, I don’t know what the answer would be”.
Miss Clark said Australia and New Zealand’s economic cycles were far from identical, adding, “We have different baskets of key commodities which tend to have a big influence on our currency.” “If Australia is undergoing a mineral boom because of high demand in China, that really isn’t going to affect us very much because we don’t have the same minerals to export.”
NZ National Party leader John Key, who is attending the forum in Sydney, said last week a common currency was worth exploring further and that he would raise the issue at the two-day forum, adding, “It’s one of those things where I would have thought some solid work on it makes sense.” “But the political difficulties of it are not to be underestimated and I’m not suggesting it’s on the short-term agenda of either country.”
Australian Finance Minister Michael Cullen said he was surprised Mr Key was raising the issue, saying, “Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with the Australian Government could tell Mr Key that a joint currency has never been on the table at any point”.
However, Mr Fischer who is now chairman of Tourism Australia, said a common currency between the two neighbours was inevitable and should be investigated further, but he insisted the new currency, which would help two-way tourism, should be called the ‘zac’, standing for ‘Zealand Australia Currency’.
Federal Treasurer Peter Costello said last month that a trans-Tasman currency could happen, given the euro covered a much more diverse range of countries across Europe, but he said any such move was decades away and was very much up to New Zealand to want it, rather than Australia.
Report by The Mole from various media
John Alwyn-Jones
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