‘Same as us anyway’: Wild new push for Australia and New Zealand to merge

Aussies and Kiwis should finally become one, argues Joe Hildebrand, as we already share our culture and citizens so freely that nobody really knows who’s from where.

COMMENT

Sometimes strange people say sensible things. And so it was that New Zealand MP James Strange suggested in his valedictory speech this week that the Land of the Long White Cloud should become part of Australia.

This is without doubt the best thing to come out of NZ since Russell Crowe, who is himself proof of the fact that we are essentially the same country.

Of course, there is an eternal caveat for whatever Rusty’s done lately – win an Oscar and he’s Aussie as Vegemite; throw a phone and he’s an instant All Black – but that is entirely the point. We already share our culture and our citizens so freely that no one really knows who’s from where anymore anyway.

‘Russell Crowe is himself proof of the fact that we are essentially the same country’. Picture: Roberto Serra – Iguana Press/Getty Images

And no, before you ask, I have never actually been to New Zealand, although I did go out with a beautiful girl from Wellington for a few months in the 1990s. The fact that she dumped me and crushed my heart should only serve as yet more proof of my incorruptible journalistic integrity.

Indeed, like most brilliant ideas, it is utterly banal. Instead of looking for reasons why Australia and New Zealand should become the same country, it takes about five seconds to realise there are virtually no reasons why we shouldn’t.

In fact, for a while during Australia’s journey to nationhood, it seemed far more likely that New Zealand would become a state than Western Australia. Indeed, there is still a provision in the Australian Constitution for New Zealand to join the Federation – as I’m sure all our newly minted constitutional scholars would be fully aware.

Should Australia and New Zealand become one? Picture: iStock

This means that according to the letter of our magnificent and elegantly flexible founding document, New Zealand is more constitutionally entrenched in Australian politics than the office of Prime Minister.

And why wouldn’t it be? Our European roots are entirely homogenous, with both of us “discovered” by Captain Cook, while we both still wrestle with our relationship with those who in fact came long before.

Indeed, on this measure, Australia has massive bragging rights: Our First Nations people beat the Maori to their respective lands by approximately 60,000 years – give or take.

Doubtless we could both learn a lot from each other on that front, but let’s get to the fun stuff.

Firstly, if we were a united nation of Australasia, neither of us would ever lose a Bledisloe Cup.

If we were a united nation of Australasia, neither of us would ever lose a Bledisloe Cup. Picture: Sanka Vidanagama/AFP

But if you think that would take any of the passion or heat out of such landmark contests, just look at the State of Origin. You always hate the ones you love.

And New Zealanders are basically the same as us anyway, and certainly no more different than Tasmanians are to Territorians or Manly residents are to all the Poms who flock in to bitch about the cricket.

Citizens of both our countries flit back and forth all day every day, jumping immigration queues and swapping aged care pensions with rare abandon. None of it bothers us. None of it matters.

We also both essentially share the same currency, although of course the NZ dollar is always a bit more piss-weak than ours, as it should be.

The only arguable minuscule difference between New Zealanders and us is that they’re a bit more woke and they talk funny.

In other words, they’re just like Victorians – and we haven’t got rid of them, despite intense provocation.

So why not bring the happy little hobbits on board? At worst, no one would notice any difference and at best, they would finally have a functional defence force.

As for the flag, it’s a no-brainer. We use the Eureka flag – that mighty standard of freedom fighters, workers, right-wing fascists and card-carrying communists. It’s been co-opted by so many crusaders and crazies it’s high time we took it back.

It’s not clear if Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins would be on board. Picture: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

And it is a symbol that is fundamentally the great Southern Cross, which already holds pride of place on both our flags, and in the real world is just stars in the sky.

In the most improbably perfect way, it sits both physically and metaphysically above politics, race and religion. A simple, eternal and universal sign of who and where we are.

Australia and New Zealand should be one for the simple reason that we already are one.

Whatever differences we have are more akin to sibling rivalries than foreign powers.

Indeed, the only reason we haven’t come together sooner is because we have always acted in concert with each other anyway.

The world is a big and scary place. ANZAC Diggers helped see off the worst of those fears in the first half of the last century.

Today, in the autumn of the long peace, a host of unforeseeable new challenges linger just below the horizon.

How good would it be if we faced them with our brothers and sisters in arms – or, even better, without need for arms at all.