An open aviation market is worth revisiting while we consider the merits of an Anzac bubble

There’s mounting enthusiasm in both Anzac countries to create a Trans-Tasman bubble linking both for air travel and tourism.

Why not?

Those  familiar  with history  say  the two countries should go a step further and re-invent the famous open market which was killed by the then Australian Transport Minister, Laurie Brereton, back  on October  23, 1994?

Reincarnated, this might serve both countries well  at this critical  point  for their economies.

In the early 1990s, both Canberra and Wellington envisaged a single market where the airlines of each country could fly freely to and within the other.  The idea had its genesis with the late Sir Peter Abeles when he chaired TNT, the former Australian multi-model transport giant.

Sir Peter was joint chairman, with Rupert Murdoch, owner of the vast News media empire, of Ansett Australia. He took advantage of NZ deregulation to launch Ansett NZ in 1987 but soon realised the only way it would ever become commercially viable would be to link Ansett operations in both countries.

This ran foul of the current air services agreements between each country.