Ten things Australians should adopt from New Zealand

Wait a minute, you might be thinking. What could we possibly want to adopt from New Zealand that we haven’t already?

And it’s true, Australia and New Zealand are not just geographically close – we’re far more culturally similar than plenty of Kiwis and maybe even Aussies would like to admit. We have similar histories, similar values, similar beliefs. We Australians have nicked plenty of ideas from across the ditch, and vice versa.

Jemaine Clement (left) and Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords. We’ll take them and their self-deprecating sense of humour.

Some quirks, of course, we’re happy to leave over in NZ: the too-serious attitude to the rivalry with Australia; Lemon & Paeroa; the insistence they invented flat whites; the hounding out of their last female prime minister (oh, wait…).

However, there’s still plenty Australia could take from our friendly Kiwi neighbours. Fortunately for them though, a lot of it is kind of stuck there.

Sense of humour

You have to love the Kiwi sense of humour: unfailingly self-deprecating (there’s a seafood joint in Hamilton literally called “Fush and Chups”), reliably funny, always relaxed. It’s no surprise this country has spawned the likes of Flight of the Conchords and Taika Waititi. New Zealanders are funny in a subtly sarcastic way that probably flies over the heads of a lot of foreign visitors, though Australians surely have enough in common to be in on the jokes.

Cheese rolls

“Southland sushi” – the cheese roll.Credit: Great South

To be honest, there aren’t many Kiwi foods we want to steal (before you say anything, pavlova isn’t from Australia or New Zealand, and the flat white most definitely came from the West Island). Still, if we were going to adopt anything, I reckon it would be the Southland cheese roll, a student-friendly dish of white bread slathered with cheese, onion soup mix and maybe Worcestershire sauce, rolled up, coated with butter and grilled. Otherwise known as “Southland sushi”. While we’re at it, I’ll also take a hokey pokey ice-cream, studded with honeycomb toffee.

Rugby team

The All Blacks win again.Credit: AP

When I was growing up, the Bledisloe Cup was huge. Everyone would be watching, willing our Wallabies on to victory against the All Blacks. That was in the ’90s, when we actually stood a slim chance of winning. A Wallabies captain hasn’t held that gigantic trophy aloft now for almost 22 years, and I think it’s time to ask the Kiwis if they wouldn’t mind giving us a couple of their players, school carnival style, to make it a bit more interesting.

Bret, Jemaine, Taika, Ella, Neil, Bic

Australia has produced some great music, some great comedy, and some great film and TV. But you can’t help but cast the odd furtive glance over the ditch and wish we could claim a few (more) famous Kiwis as our own. Let’s start with Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords, then we’ll take Taika Waititi, then we’ve already claimed Neil Finn so we might as well make that official, and we’ll have Ella Yelich-O’Connor (aka Lorde), and why not Bic Runga too?

“Lots of little” food movement

Mapu Test Kitchen.

There are great things happening in the food scene over in New Zealand right now, spearheaded by a movement to eat “lots of little” – that is, focus on local, seasonal food, eat what’s around you, and then move on. It has resulted in intensely locavore restaurants like Graze in Wellington and Mapu Test Kitchen in Christchurch, not to mention a swag of farmers markets and artisanal producers across the country. Australia is not far behind of course, but still, the Kiwis have some big, admirable ideas.

Adventure addiction

Bungy jumping in Queenstown.Credit: AJ Hackett/Bungy New Zealand

The Kiwi obsession with adrenaline-fuelled activities should be obvious to any tourist who has ever set foot in the country. Bungy jumping, sky-diving, rafting, paragliding, Zorbing, mountaineering, snowboarding, mountain-biking, jet-boating, caving, heli-skiing … essentially if it’s scary and you can charge money for it, someone near you in New Zealand will be offering. I’m all for it.

Treaty with Indigenous Peoples

New Zealand’s national day is Waitangi Day, which celebrates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, an agreement between the British Crown and Maori rangatira recognising Maori ownership of land and possessions, and giving Maori people the rights of British citizens. Australia has no such agreement with First Nations peoples, something very obvious in the date we celebrate our own nationhood: January 26, when Captain Arthur Phillip planted the Union Jack and proclaimed Australia “terra nullius”.

Mountains

Aoraki/Mount Cook is New Zealand’s tallest mountain at 3724 metres.Credit: iStock

New Zealand could swing us, say, 10 good-sized mountains, all over 3000 metres in altitude, dwarfing our own modest Mt Kosciuszko at 2228 metres, and they wouldn’t even miss them. Wouldn’t even know they were gone. The Kiwis have something like 25 peaks over the 3000 metres mark, plus countless others higher than Kossie. It seems reasonable to share.

Adoption of Maori language

Spend time in New Zealand and you’ll start to hear a few words you aren’t familiar with slipped into normal conversation. Kia ora (hello) is the most common, though you might hear about whanau (family), aroha (love), iwi (tribe), kai (food), and someone might even say kia pai to ra (have a good day). There’s been a conscious effort in NZ to adopt more of the Indigenous language into everyday use, and it makes you realise that that’s not something we do in Australia. Yes, it’s different here, with more than 250 Indigenous languages to choose from, but we could always give it a bash.

Freedom camping

If you’ve got a self-contained vehicle in New Zealand – that is, a campervan with a toilet, a rubbish bin and a waste-water tank – then you are free to camp out on any public land, from beachfronts to riversides to mountains to riverbanks to the carpark of a local supermarket. It makes New Zealand pretty much the best place in the world for an extended road trip. Australia, meanwhile, has far more restrictive laws that vary from state to state and even local council to local council. Which is nowhere near as much fun.