UPDATED 2.55PM: The subject of passport-free trans-Tasman travel's been raised again - this time by Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne.

Dunne has called for fresh life to be breathed into the relationship between New Zealand and Australia by allowing our respective citizens free movement across our borders, without the need for a passport, as is increasingly the case in Europe.

He says there are no more similar peoples on Earth than Australians and New Zealanders, and despite all the rivalries, we genuinely like each other.

"If you can travel around Europe now on a card that doesn't need you to have a passport, and surely this family, these two closest nations on earth, can do the same between them."

He believes that at the moment, the trans-Tasman relationship is more like distant cousins, than close siblings.

"The Australian government has always had the view that they have no exceptions to their visa entry policy and when you get a stamp in your passport it certainly counts as a visa as far as I'm concerned." 

Tourism Industry Association chief executive Chris Roberts says scrapping passports would strengthen the trans-Tasman relationship.

Passport-free travel was in force from 1973 to the early 1980s, but was scrapped after a number of drug smuggling cases.