Australia and New Zealand have confirmed plans for a trans-Tasman travel 'bubble' and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says he wants the Australasian population to be seen as a collective.
"We've got to see the Australasian population as one," he said on Tuesday. "Think one ANZAC population... Treat ourselves as one population and it's a possibility."
A trans-Tasman travel 'bubble' without the need for quarantine at each end would mean the world for Kiwis like Matt Hirawani who has been living in Melbourne for five years and travels home to New Zealand regularly to see his family.
"I've got a small tribe back home, so [I've been] trying to connect with them a little bit through conference calls and stuff like that, but it's not really working," Hirawani told Newshub.
"I've got my grandparents who are getting to that age as well as my dad who's not of the best of health."
A trans-Tasman 'bubble' is now becoming a reality.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern left her ninth floor Beehive office on Tuesday and zipped across to New Zealand's top-secret spy agency in Wellington.
From there, she beamed into Australia's high-powered national Cabinet meeting, which comprises Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and all state and territory premiers and chief ministers.
"The national Cabinet tends to meet in times of national crisis but obviously isn't frequent," Ardern said on Tuesday. "The last New Zealand Prime Minister to participate in such a meeting was Peter Fraser."
That was during World War II, with Fraser attending Australia's war cabinets.
Now, we're fighting a war of a different type, and because it appears both Australia and New Zealand are winning the COVID-19 battle, we're looking to join forces again.
"We both stand to benefit from getting travel up and running again," Ardern said.
Peters says without trans-Tasman travel helping reboot our economy the consequences will be dire.
"There is something much more massive and huge we've got to confront. It is the number of deaths we'll get from depression from people in despair and misery because of an outside invader and the economic consequences of what happens."
Some of the borders between Australia's six states are still closed to stop the spread of COVID-19 and Australia's Prime Minister said it could take a while for restrictions to ease.
"It is still some time away but it is important to flag it because it is part of the road back."
Peters is ruling out state by state travel 'bubbles'.
"It is all or nothing, maybe with the exception of Tasmania, because Tasmania does not have an airline route out of there - they are coming from Melbourne anyway," he said.
The Prime Minister said travellers wouldn't need to be quarantined for two weeks.
"We wouldn't have to have a quarantine attached. I think everyone would acknowledge it would be prohibitive."
It comes as the Ministry of Health reported no new cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand on Tuesday for the second day in a row.
But there will be no travel 'bubbles' until it's safe.
"Neither of us wants cases of COVID coming between our countries," Ardern said. "Neither of us wants the burden of that. So, I think regardless of our future path, we'll be looking for ways to do it safely - that will be top of mind."
She said New Zealand "will not have open borders for the rest of the world for a long time to come".
