There are few things you can be in New Zealand that are frowned upon more than being Australian. We are the Americans of the Southern Hemisphere. Every Australian is guilty of the following crimes until proven innocent:
Being undeservedly rich: Without even pretending to have checked the facts on this, it seems like incomes in Australia are higher than they are in NZ. Certainly people in NZ think so, which is why so many Kiwis head to Australia to work. Perhaps perceptions are a bit skewed because the Australians here are mostly cashed up holiday makers, but then the fact that there are so many cashed up holiday makers has to count for something.
Poaching Kiwi talent: There is always a steady flow of young New Zealanders heading for Australia to seek their fortunes and go surfing without wetsuits. This drain of talent is something that older kiwis both understand and slightly resent.
Being arrogant: It’s hard for me to judge this because I’m a pretty arrogant person, and so to live with myself I need to have a pretty insensitive arrogance-meter. It’s not clear whether this perception developed from the behaviour of Australians in general or whether this just reflects our cricket and rugby teams, but either way it’s now a national trait of which we’re all guilty.
Being dangerously overconfident: Sadly young Australian males have well and truly earned a reputation for coming to New Zealand, and getting injured or killed while participating in adventure sports. Sometimes it’s incompetence, sometimes it’s sheer bad luck, but the number of Australians getting out of their depth in NZ suggests some national overconfidence might well be involved. (On a sad and related note, an Australian snowboarder died recently at Mt Cheeseman. I don’t know the circumstances of this accident, but it sucks.)
Having a terrible accent: It’s true. Kiwis have no respect for our broad, friendly and welcoming accents. It appears that the respect and admiration shown universally by Australians for the Kiwi accent is not reciprocated. I can only express my deepest disappointment at what seems to be a genuine misunderstanding between the peoples of two nations.
Having an unfair share of beautiful women: Imagine if, rather than actually visiting Australia, you only saw advertisements for the place. You’d think all of our women were bikini clad babes who emerged from the sea and then accosted you about your bloody location. The truth (that there are a thousand times more applicants for The Biggest Loser than there are for Australia’s Next Top Model) can only be found by going to shopping malls around the nation, and we wisely don’t put those in our advertising material. Thus, some strapping Kiwi lads have expressed to me the notion that Australians are blessed with an unfair number of beautiful women.
Being patronising: It is true that there is a certain amount of condescension in the attitude of Australians towards our eastern neighbours. It’s hard to explain precisely why. Perhaps it’s because New Zealand is so small. I don’t have a map handy, but my impression is that the whole of New Zealand is roughly the size of greater metropolitan Melbourne. On the South Island, you can drive from the east coast to the west coast in less time than it takes to fly from coast to coast in Australia. This is a bit unfair though. New Zealand packs a fair bit of bad-ass into its limited land mass. If you took all the mountains in Australia and stacked them on top of each other they’d still be smaller than Mt Cook. Plus, some of the orcs from the filming of The Lord of the Rings movies escaped into the hills and have formed breeding populations.
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