Brook Sabin is a travel reporter with Stuff and has worked in the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
OPINION: Imagine checking in for your next flight to Australia at the domestic airport.
It could work a little like this: leave your passport at home, because the only identification you need is a driver’s licence.
Once your ID is verified at self check-in, your bags head away to the plane. On the way there, they’re scanned, and an image is beamed to Border Force in Australia.
While you’re flying across the Tasman, authorities in Australia review the images and pre-clear most of the plane.
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On arrival, the plane lands at the domestic airport and you walk straight out and collect your bags. If any suspicious items were found in the scans, your name is displayed on a board, meaning you need to head to Border Force for a check.
Of course, it’s easy to write this and much harder to implement – especially in a world of drug syndicates and increased threats such as foot and mouth. But humans have spent their entire lives tackling problems in the too-hard basket and solving them – this should be one of them.
Former Prime Minister Sir John Key first floated the concept in 2009, pushing the idea of passport-free travel with then Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, followed by Julia Gillard.
Key faced increased headwinds with a changing guard of prime ministers across the ditch and a tightening of Australia’s border. The idea died in a bureaucratic abyss.
Key, however, made significant progress with SmartGate, which has made border crossing much faster.
However, it’s crazy that New Zealanders, who enjoy a special relationship with Australia, are processed at the same international terminal as someone arriving from Greece, Zimbabwe or Japan.
If you need any more convincing, perhaps cheaper airfares will do it. When I last wrote about the need to streamline trans-Tasman travel, the taxes and levies for a return flight to Sydney were $204. Now, it’s $235.59.
That means on a $656 return flight, almost 40% of the fare is taxes and levies.
That gets chewed up with a $67.30 Passenger Movement Charge, $43.74 International Border Clearance Levy, $16.93 Passenger Security Charge, a $35.62 Passenger Service Charge and a $72 Passenger Service Charge International.
But wait, it gets even more outrageous: a return flight to Singapore has just $165 in taxes and Los Angeles $204.
Even Air New Zealand’s new flagship route – its 16-hour flight to New York – faces $204 in taxes and levies, $31 cheaper than crossing the Tasman to Sydney. To be clear, these levies are not imposed by the airlines – they are fixed fees set by Government agencies and airports.
Trans-Tasman travellers make short international trips, and pose a relatively small risk, yet we are paying some of the highest taxes. We are being milked.
Of course, the idea of passportless domestic travel is full of logistical challenges. But we should apply technology to try and solve these issues.
The New Zealand Government promised a tourism reset when we emerged from the pandemic; imagine domestic trans-Tasman travel being one of them.
Australia is our biggest tourist market; there is enormous potential in making it easier and cheaper to get here. It would be a sizeable boost to our economy.
If our ANZAC spirit has taught us anything, it’s that together, we can overcome big obstacles. This should be one of them.
What do you think? Should trans-Tasman travel be domestic? Let us know in the comments below.
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