A song in praise of New Zealand
December 29, 2023 12:45 PM Subscribe
From the TV show Australian Epic: a song about why New Zealand is better than Australia. (Context is that this is about an event in 2001 where Australia under then-Prime Minister John Howard treated refugees very badly.) This is the Facebook link which has proper captions. This is the youtube link which only has crappy autogenerated captions.
Not to be a downer, but although NZ doesn't maintain offshore detention camps for asylum-seekers (yay us) we ALSO take far fewer refugees annually than Australia, because xenophobia and cost, basically. We did do this which is nice.
It's a fun song though.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:08 PM on December 29, 2023
It's a fun song though.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:08 PM on December 29, 2023
The difference in civility between Australian politics and NZ politics is pretty huge and I have no idea why that gap exists.
As an NZ citizen though, I'm not complaining.
posted by happyinmotion at 4:01 PM on December 29, 2023
As an NZ citizen though, I'm not complaining.
posted by happyinmotion at 4:01 PM on December 29, 2023
Used to be a saying about NZ being (pop-)culturally 2-3 years behind AU, and AU was 2-3 years behind the UK which was in turn 2-3 years behind the US. This was pre-internet. Nowadays I suspect the lead-time has been massively compressed down to months or weeks.
I guess NZ has finally picked up a more right-wing coalition government after some culture-war bullshit and generally lackadaisical centrist politics from the previous centre-left government... took a few years to arrive (after the ongoing GOP/Tory fiascos in the US/UK) but it'll be interesting to see how it pans out and if the punters can see through new government, or if they'll manage to irrecoverably break the country (which will happen if they current coalition pushes/wins a referendum to drop the Treaty of Waitangi as a foundational document to appease the RWNJ contingent; in the past I'd say they're firmly in the minority but with the loss of the NZ cannabis referendum and the recent AU referendum loss I'd say its no longer a predictable outcome and the general populace can be easily led astray).
TL;DR the ad is funny and of its time. We're probably closer to AU in many ways now for better or worse (and we don't even have the Murdoch press! we're doing it all on our own, yay NZ!)
posted by phigmov at 7:39 PM on December 29, 2023
I guess NZ has finally picked up a more right-wing coalition government after some culture-war bullshit and generally lackadaisical centrist politics from the previous centre-left government... took a few years to arrive (after the ongoing GOP/Tory fiascos in the US/UK) but it'll be interesting to see how it pans out and if the punters can see through new government, or if they'll manage to irrecoverably break the country (which will happen if they current coalition pushes/wins a referendum to drop the Treaty of Waitangi as a foundational document to appease the RWNJ contingent; in the past I'd say they're firmly in the minority but with the loss of the NZ cannabis referendum and the recent AU referendum loss I'd say its no longer a predictable outcome and the general populace can be easily led astray).
TL;DR the ad is funny and of its time. We're probably closer to AU in many ways now for better or worse (and we don't even have the Murdoch press! we're doing it all on our own, yay NZ!)
posted by phigmov at 7:39 PM on December 29, 2023
2001, you say? That song would be very different in December 2023!
rednikki, the song is from a TV show first broadcast in 2023, but it's about the events of 2001.
Australian Epic is a show that's a retrospective about past events.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:44 PM on December 29, 2023
rednikki, the song is from a TV show first broadcast in 2023, but it's about the events of 2001.
Australian Epic is a show that's a retrospective about past events.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 8:44 PM on December 29, 2023
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posted by rednikki at 2:16 PM on December 29, 2023