Into the trans-Tasman bubble ... it’s the Anzac way

The world is in a state of flux that could remain for years and double-digit unemployment headed our way demands smarter strategic responses, writes SIMON BEVILACQUA.

NEW Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters was on the money when he spoke this week about a “trans-Tasman bubble” in which trade and travel between Australia and the Land of the Long White Cloud could be among the first international reconnections after the lockdown.

This is the Anzac spirit — a bold “let’s get it done by using what’s at hand” ingenuity. It is the type of thinking required in the wake of a paralysed world, as the full realisation of the economic and geopolitical fallout of the lockdown hits home.

Global supply chains are decimated. Some links, both domestically and overseas, will be forever destroyed, while others will be slow to recover and will require political and economic assistance to coalesce.

Think of this catastrophe metaphorically, like a car crash in which the driver suffers severe trauma. The motorist is in hospital on life support. Medical indications suggest the patient will recover but needs physiotherapy to walk again.

In recovery, the patient’s brain will need to learn new neural pathways to control the limbs to walk, and will need to use different muscles, which will require strengthening to become fit to carry the load.

That’s what Tasmania must do economically.

New Zealand is about as close as Sydney is to Hobart, a couple of flying hours or so from the Tasmanian capital, and presents as a lucrative market of 4.8 million people that could be declared virus-free in a matter of months.

The return of Hobart to Christchurch flights for trade and tourism could be among the first international “neural paths” on the planet to reconnect, and provide both sides of the ditch with rare growth opportunities (not to the extent of the economic jab Tasmania received from Chinese investment, and to which it became addicted before the pandemic, but growth nonetheless).

New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters. Picture: MARTY MELVILLE/AFP

The New Zealand Deputy PM suggested a trans-Tasman bubble at a national level, but it is more effective to apply his idea at a regional level. If Tasmania can beat the virus on the North-West Coast, which looks possible after the testing this week, NZ could offer a rare lifeline back to business.

Re-establishment of the Hobart-Christchurch link would require strict antiviral protocols, just like biosecurity between our agricultural sectors. It could become a template for expanding flight paths and establishing “neural” links further afield.

Let’s get Kiwi tourists to Port Arthur and at the tables of Coal River Farm and Landscape, and instead of a Bali holiday, let’s try Auckland or Blenheim or Wellington.

Tasmania should have forged stronger economic ties with the Kiwis before the pandemic but, like everyone else in the Asia-Pacific, chose to cling to the dragon’s tail of China’s economic miracle. That option is now on ice, if not snap frozen, as the world resets relations with the Communist Party of China (CPC).

China-US relations are at a low. Australia has long tied its defence and sovereignty to the American global shield, which is being tested as we speak in the South China Sea. The US has its hands full with the virus running rampant.

The condescending tone of the CPC in dismissing Defence Minister Marise Payne’s temperate and justified call this week for an independent probe into the genesis of the virus cannot be ignored.

Nor can the arrest this week of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, frogmarched into detention in masks, in the interests, if not at the behest, of the CPC.

Nor can the positioning of a CPC state business aircraft on a Vanuatu runway this week, delaying Australian foreign aid aboard an RAAF aircraft.

Nor can the CPC’s silence on the wellbeing of millions of Uighur people in detention in China prior to the pandemic.

This is not the behaviour of a good neighbour; more like a belligerent state on the march.

I make this observation not of Chinese people but of the CPC. I urge Tasmanians to extend kindness to Chinese-Australians, Chinese visitors and Chinese people generally.

One day, hopefully, we can welcome back the crowds of students and tourists who added such a positive new dimension to our communities.

However, in the context of geopolitical tensions, the lack of a vaccine, the paucity of trust in the CPC’s statements about the virus in China, and subsequent hesitancy or even reluctance to embrace the return of global travel on both sides of the ledger, the Chinese are unlikely to come back in pre-pandemic numbers in the near future.

We cannot afford to reboot our economy in the forlorn hope they return in the long-term.

The world is in a state of flux that could remain for years. The double-digit unemployment headed our way demands much smarter strategic responses.

Most of the large projects on the drawing board in Tasmania before the pandemic were driven by Chinese investment and patronage. The Tasmanian Government must accept this cannot be relied upon in the short-term and, when the virus is tamed on our shores, must focus funding and resources on new growth opportunities.

We need jobs.

This means exploring markets in cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Christchurch that will likely be reactivated in the shorter term. It means identifying niches of demand that Tasmanian businesses can supply by adapting their workforces, technology and skills. The failure of global supply chains will present new opportunities across the ditch and domestically.

We need to creatively allocate resources to enable us to jump at opportunities. Our farmers have long adapted to demand — for orchardists, it’s Fujis one day, Red Delicious the next — all our industries must adopt this kind of flexibility.

Like our brains learn new neural pathways to overcome severe trauma, these new trade links could enable Tasmania’s economy to stand and walk, and allow us to at least dream of a day when the two Anzac nations may run like the wind.