Op-Ed: Australia and New Zealand to become one nation?

Originally, New Zealand was part of the New South Wales colony. When Australia became a Commonwealth, the Kiwis decided to go it alone. Despite a terrible lack of vowels and hopeless addiction to sporting trophies, they’ve done pretty well.

One Australian politician is pretty anti-Kiwi. Melbourne MP Kelvin Thomson (Labor, Vic.) opposes the current open door policy. Aussies and Kiwis can scuttle across the Tasman freely, and many Kiwis come to Australia. Thomson seems to feel that Australian quality of life is being affected negatively by the Kiwi presence. Part of the argument is a recent projection that Australia’s population will hit 35 million by 2050. The fact is that the Kiwis, with a population of 4 million, can’t do that on their own, even if all of them moved here. Hard to say how the Kiwis are having a negative effect on Australian quality of life, though. Apart from outbreaks of pro-All Black sentiment, it’s difficult to see how they pose a threat to the Great Barbie. Bernard Lagan, a Kiwi writer replying to Thomson’s comments in the Sydney Morning Herald thinks the single nation approach is more likely than not, and probably in New Zealand’s interest. It’s likely, as the world shrinks, that sometime in the future it’ll make more sense to unify. The reality is that the two nations are pretty much permanently linked, both by history and geography as well as economics. New Zealand isn’t a “poor cousin” to Australia, either. Their economic performance, in real terms, is overall good, and they’re tough economic competitors when they feel like it. (Despite our desperate attempts to figure out how to bowl a sheep underarm, they’re still major competitors with our wool industry, too…) Actually, Australia could benefit greatly from incorporating the Land of the Long White Vowel into the Commonwealth. 1. All that sporting crockery (New Zealand is the only country on Earth that has about as much surface area on its sporting trophies as it has actual land) could become part of Australia. Our mineral resources would double overnight. 2. The All Blacks will never be the All Golds any more than the Wallabies are about to become the Tuataras, but at least we’d get a look at the Bledisloe Cup a bit more often. 3. We’d get The Vowel, and conquer the world. 4. Mainland Cheese could be sent into space from Woomera, and those pesky aliens could be defeated and stop doing Australian Idol. 5. We could finally persuade Tasmania that we don’t really have anything against people living on islands. The New Zealanders, on the other hand, could benefit from: 1. Unrestricted access to Vegemite, the Australian aphrodisiac. 2. Free rides on wombats. 3. All the possums they can fit on their public transport. 4. Um, ah, er…..