FoE

Does New Zealand have the same relationship with Australia that Canada has with the US? Two less populous nations next door to much larger ones?

kwigibo

to an extent. NZ is more liberal on the whole, very strong diplomatic ties (although not so strong on occasion), increased freedom of travel between the two. There is a tendency for Australians to jokingly regard NZ as irrelevant, and Kiwis sometimes appear to have an inferiority complex of sorts (remember, i said 'appear').

Similar, although, politically speaking, I'd venture that Australia and New Zealand are significantly more alike than the US and Canada.

mongrel

In 1901 NZ almost became a state of Australia, but I think it wasn't passed in a referendum there, but to this day they're still in our constitution as a possible state. I'd say we're pretty similar.

Farren

Not quite on topic but... back when I was young and carefree and living in an anarchic commune, taking enough drugs to make Hunter S Thompson scold, my grilfriend dragged a great hulking white Australian rastafarian over to our place.

Since he was entertaining and had nowhere to sleep (he was bumming his way round the world - he came to SA after being turned away at Kingston airport in Jamaica for not having enough cash), we let him crash with us for three months.

Anyway, I remember one of countless evening when we were all stoned out of our trees, I started cracking Aussie "sheep" jokes, like

Q: How does an aussie find a sheep in long grass?

A: Satisfying.... very, very satisfying.

He told me that in Austalia, all the bruce-and-the-sheep jokes we tell here are about New Zealanders. Apparently they have the highest ratio of sheep to humans in the world. Which is ironic, considering how NZ'ers are so independent-minded.

Anyway, as I said, off topic, just a memory of a very fine time that came to me and I thought I'd share.

ohwilleke

New Zealand is not dominated by Australia to nearly the extent that Canada is impacted by the U.S. Also New Zealand and Australia both have nominal links to the British monarch, as does Canada, while the U.S., of course, severed those ties long ago.

New Zealand, Australia and Canada all operate within "European sensibilities" about government (Parliamentary systems, stronger welfare states, etc.), the U.S., of course, does not.

Few people realize that while New Zealand and Australia look like close neighbors on a map, that the Tasman sea separate the two countries by more than 1000 miles of storm prone ocean, about the same distance as a trip from Kansas City to San Francisco.

Certainly, there are big differences between the two. New Zealand is green, Australia is brown. New Zealand has mountains, Australia has vast deserts. New Zealand was a colonial destination its settlers chose; Australia was a prison colony. The choice of New Zealand to film the Lord of the Rings is appropriate, because it was founded to create the kind of idyllic "shire" community that those book imagined. The Maori's of New Zealand are a polynesian people, like many Pacific Islanders. Australia's aborignines are a population significantly different from any other on earth. There are similarities of accent, of ecology (both have marsupials), and of relationships to England. But, the relationship is not nearly so uneven. The New Zealand national identity, for example, is not nearly so tied up in not being Australian, as the Canadian one is in not being American.

NZAmoeba

Fuck no, almost polar opposites

No we don't, NZ has a very limited animal ecology, just birds and insects, with a handfull of lizards, and of course fish... hell the only predator NZ had was a now extinct giant eagle, that was big enough to kill moa's (a now extinct bird similar to an ostridge, but bigger, which makes for a monster of an eagle...)

We didn't even get mammals untill humans arrived, which was around 700 years ago at most i think

Sauron

Funny. I've always thought of NZ as the paradise that Australia would never be. Australia is
* hot, dry, dusty, outback, with
* the world's most poisonous snakes;
* the world's most poisonous spiders;
* the world's most poisonous octopus (blue-ring);
* the world's most poisonous ants (jack jumpers);


Now mind you, Australians are probably the nicest, most effable, best hearted people in the world. And if you're ever in a fight, one Australian on your side is worth two Americans. But I much prefer the rainforest and/or alpine climate of NZ, along with the lack of poisonous critters...

Of course, Australia *does* have some great birds - cockatoos, galahs, cockatiels, did I mention cockatoos?

NZAmoeba

I spose they're nice birds, but I think the Tui is quite impressive when you sit back and listen to the total cacophony of sounds one bird is capable of making.

Oh yeah, the other major difference between aus and nz that Sauron pointed out, is how the tiniest insect in australlia can grab you by the ankle and drag you down into its lair screaming (well you would be screaming but its venom has paralised you in less than a second... )

Meanwhile our mosquitos itch a bit...

lunachick

Australia and NZ are really nothing alike. Geologically; flora and fauna; and even culturally, the only thing we have in common is a love of coastal life, beer, barbeques and rugby. We are good friends and have a (mostly) fun sporting rivalry between us; but we are really quite different in many, many more ways than we are similar.

Sauron

I've always admired the New Zealand Kea - any bird that can dismantle a car with its beak *has* to be respected.