ANZAC spirit fails drug test

It can be surprisingly difficult to get along with your neighbours, even when you frequently play sport together and have a lot more in common, besides.
The unheralded decision of the Australian and New Zealand governments to abandon 11 years of work on a joint regulatory regime for medicines, to be overseen by a single trans-Tasman watchdog, is a reminder of how hard it can be to achieve a level of harmony even between two seemingly similar countries.
Earlier this afternoon, Australian Health Minister Peter Dutton and his New Zealand counterpart Dr Jonathan Coleman jointly announced agreement to “cease efforts” to establish a joint therapeutic products regulator.
Aside from what this means for hopes of cheaper and more readily available medicines in the two countries, and a smaller regulatory burden for business, it is a significant blow – at least symbolically – to aspirations for much greater economic co-operation between the two countries.
When plans for the Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Agency were first hatched in 2003, it was amid a swirl of trans-Tasman bonhomie.
The agency was to have been the first fully joint trans-Tasman regulator, and the harbinger of much more to come.
The creation of the ANZTPA was seen as a relatively straightforward task that would embody the ambition of much more intimate trans-Tasman relations expressed in the Closer Economic Relations pact between the two countries, and blaze the trail of increased co-operation.
The unspoken ambition of some has been for the creation of a single ANZAC market.
But if the two countries can’t even agree on something as seemingly relatively straightforward and mundane as the regulation of drugs and medical devices, what hope for other areas of activity?
In their joint announcement, Mr Dutton and Dr Coleman said that the decision to abandon the project was taken “following a comprehensive review of progress and assessment of the costs and benefits to each country of proceeding”.
The collapse of this particular project hardly means the idea of closer Australia-New Zealand economic integration is dead.
But it does yet again call into questions the idea that closer economic ties will inevitably resolve political differences between countries and make national boundaries increasingly invisible.
Even a brief contemplation of the internecine conflicts and testy relationships that bubble beneath the surface between the members states of the European Union or the United States should be evidence enough of the fallacy of that.