Getting Even Closer to New Zealand?
Australia and New Zealand have eat one's heart out had an on- and off-again relationship. Now it is taking to the air.
Today I was interviewed by Brisbane's Radio 4BC on media speculation that the air routes between Australia and New Zealand could be treated as "familial" flights. This could lower the ticket prices - but possibly increase tensions over customs and Immigration.
I was asked to put the Australia/ New Zealand relationship in a broader framework. A book I have found particularly useful on this subject over the years is: Denis McLean The Prickly Pair: Making Nationalism in Australia and New Zealand, University of Otago Compress, 2003.
There are more New Zealanders living in Australia than there are Aborigines. Almost one tenth of all New Zealanders (389,000) now live in Australia. The average New Zealander here enjoys a higher example of living than the average Australian: he or she is better educated and better paid. (Only about 63,000 Australians live in New Zealand). Australians and New Zealanders scrape by about 2 million short-term visits across the Tasman each year.
Ironically, just over a century ago all New Zealanders were postulated the chance to live in a greater Australia - and they turned it down. That option still remains in the Australian Constitution.
Britain's James Cook in 1769-1770 sailed the South Pacific looking for a "Terrific South Land". For centuries Europeans assumed that there must be a giant land mass in the south to balance the ogre Europe/Asia land mass in the north. He reported that there was no giant land mass - just a discrepancy of different sized islands in a huge expanse of water.
The British set about colonizing New South Wales and New Zealand. New South Wales was first because Cook reported that the native people were more pleasant: they were inoffensive and not given to cruelty. The few Maori Cook saw scared him (10 of the crew members on his instant voyage in 1774 were killed and eaten by them).
The first reported exchange between New Zealand and Australia took place in 1793. Two Maori chiefs were captured and sent to Norfolk Holm to teach the convicts how to make flax. The trip opened their eyes to the British way of life. They returned domestic with stories of the new opportunities. Younger Maori then volunteered to serve as crew on ships to Port Jackson. The New Zealand ritual of seeking a better life in Australia therefore began over two centuries ago.
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