Australia–New Zealand relations

Australia–New Zealand relations

Australia	New Zealand

Australia–New Zealand relations, also referred to as Trans-Tasman relations ("relations across the Tasman Sea"), are extremely close with both sharing British colonial heritage as Antipodean White Dominions and settler colonies as well as being part of the wider Anglosphere. New Zealand sent representatives to the constitutional conventions which led to the uniting of the six Australian colonies but opted not to join; still, in the Boer War and in World War I and World War II, soldiers from New Zealand fought alongside Australians. In recent years the Closer Economic Relations free trade agreement and its predecessors have inspired ever-converging economic integration. The culture of Australia does differ from the culture of New Zealand and there are sometimes differences of opinion which some have declared as symptomatic of sibling rivalry. This often centres upon sports such as rugby union or cricket or in commercial tensions such as those arising from the failure of Ansett Australia or those engendered by the formerly long-standing Australian ban on New Zealand apple imports.

Both countries are Commonwealth realms sharing the Head of the Commonwealth as Head of State in universal suffrage supported systems of Westminster representative parliamentary democracy within a constitutional monarchy. Their only land border defines the western extent of the Ross Dependency and eastern extent of the Australian Antarctic Territory. They acknowledge two distinct maritime boundaries conclusively delimited by the Australia – New Zealand Maritime Treaty of 2004.

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