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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Australia and New Zealand are often considered close cousins, but how much do we really know about our smaller neighbour?

New Zealand’s rapid response to Covid-19 and the political success of Jacinda Ardern has seen the world start to pay more attention to the country’s political culture.

Today, political journalist and contributor to The Quarterly Essay, Laura Tingle, on what Australia can learn from New Zealand.

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RUBY:

Laura, in your Quarterly Essay, you write about a lack of curiosity in Australia about New Zealand. Why do you think that is?

LAURA:

Well, I put it down to the way we saw ourselves historically, that is that both countries were basically much more concerned with the way the United Kingdom, Britain, saw us when we were still colonies than the way we saw each other.

But without a doubt, I think New Zealand has periodically played an important role, sort of subliminally in the Australian debate. Or not so subliminally. Its people have looked across the Tasman and said, oh, wait a minute, they're doing something more than we're doing or different to what we're doing. And that's interesting.

Archival Tape -- Jacinda Ardern:

“Evening everyone…thought that I would jump online quickly and just check in with everyone as we all prepare to hunker down….”

LAURA:

And I think without a doubt, the sort of phenomenon of Jacinda Ardern and Covid-19 has really changed the way we look at New Zealand.

Archival Tape -- Jacinda Ardern:

“...all of the efforts that we’re putting in should eventually show if we all follow the rules.
Remember; stay at home, break the chain and you’ll save lives.”

LAURA:

Part of it's that she's just obviously a very effective politician based on the fact that she's won an historic majority in the last election.

But I think it's also because she's sort of the antithesis of, or represents the antithesis of where our politics has got to. She's nice to everybody.

Archival Tape -- Jacinda Ardern:

“...the simplicity of peace, of prosperity, of fairness. If I could distil it down into one concept that we are pursuing in New Zealand, it is simple and it is this: kindness.”

LAURA:

There aren't the really stupid sort of culture war issues in New Zealand that we get in Australia so much. They seem to be just dealing with the practicalities of the issues facing the day. It seems to be very decisive leadership. It's not all talk in clichés compared to what we do.

So I think it's a combination of the disillusion with our politics and the fact that she is just sort of, I think, seen as such a breath of fresh air. I think both of those things really make a difference.

RUBY:

And I want to take a step back here and talk about the origins of our relationship with New Zealand. And there are many places that you can start and there are many in your essay. But I thought we could talk about the Anzacs and Gallipoli, because in Australia we talk a lot about their role in forging our national identity. And within that is this idea that, you know, we're tied to New Zealand through the hardship and the mateship of war. But tell me, what did you discover about how New Zealand sees the Anzac legend?

LAURA:

Well, this is quite interesting, New Zealand has certainly not got into the sort of the real overblown sort of nature of Anzac that we have, and the view of the New Zealand and Australian troops in the First World War, where the Anzac legend started, was actually pretty negative.

The Australian official historian C.W. Bean, described the New Zealanders as colourless. And there was a wonderful quote that I've got in the essay from a Kiwi trooper who talks about the average Aussie being a skiting, bumptious fool who always thought that they knew better than everybody else.

So they were always sort of tensions in the relationships on the ground.

But we've sort of made more of the sort of the whole legend of our wartime exploits much greater than it is in New Zealand.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“Through these 102,000 men and women, and the millions more who have worn our nation’s uniform, we come to understand what love of family, community and country truly means…”

LAURA:

It just doesn't have that huge military tradition that we have.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“…Australians have faced the very worst. And they have done so for us. To defend our land, to protect our people, and to create a freer and more just world.”

LAURA:

We've sort of stolen the ANZAC idea.

And yes, we did fight side by side. But to me, it's sort of weird that we talk so much about those issues and, you know, always about sport when in fact, we are such close economic allies.

You know, there's no closer relationship in the world, really, than the one between Australia and New Zealand. It almost became a state of Australia. And I think it sort of just a bit weird to me that we don't recognise that.

RUBY:

Hmm. And in your essay, you write that as we entered the new century, the paths that Australia and New Zealand were on started to diverge wildly. And at this time, the two countries had very different leaders. There was Helen Clark in New Zealand and John Howard here in Australia. So can you tell me about the ways in which that set us off in different trajectories?

LAURA:

Well, I think what happened by the time we got to the beginning of the current century, I think the events of 9/11 played a huge role. John Howard sort of took that at a political level and sort of really ran with it.

Archival Tape -- John Howard:

“…We have no closer alliance with any country in the world than the one we have with the United States. The paths of our two countries have been parallel in so many ways, in the fight against terrorism and the promotion of democracy and freedom around the world….”

LAURA:

The whole idea of national security, of being alert and alarmed that we were under imminent threat from terrorists, at every corner.

Archival Tape -- John Howard:

“Terrorists oppose nations such as the United States and Australia, not because of what we have done, but because of who we are, and because of the values we hold in common…”

LAURA:

That became part of the sort of national political discussion and part of the national political debate in a way that didn't happen in New Zealand.

Helen Clark refused to join the coalition of the willing in Iraq. She said it wasn't sanctioned by the United Nations

Archival Tape -- Helen Clark:

“...that the New Zealand government doesn't even think about contributing anything to Iraq unless there’s a UN mandate.”

LAURA:

New Zealand had decided to make itself useful, as a few people have said to me, by being the great multilateralists, you know, they'd get involved in multinational peacekeeping forces supporting the big international bodies like the UN. But Helen Clark also says, you know, we don't actually like sending our troops overseas. We don't like actually getting involved in these brawls.

Archival Tape -- Helen Clark:

“The bottom line is that this government doesn't trade the lives of young New Zealanders for a war it doesn't believe in.”

LAURA:

That of itself was quite a sort of a big shift in the way the two countries operated in the rest of the world.

RUBY:

Right, and so what is the legacy of Helen Clark’s approach as Prime Minister domestically, compared with that of the Howard government?

LAURA:

Well, I think Helen Clark's social policies were, you know, a lot of things like gay rights and things like that, which we didn't address till a lot later. But she certainly didn't get into the culture wars. This, which in its earliest manifestation under John Howard was this idea that there were elites who were sort of had captured Canberra, and I think that sort of set up this this sort of framework that we see today still, which is sort of extends beyond the political realm into the media, via the Murdoch newspapers and Sky television, where everything's sort of seen in these left and right boxes.

If we look at New Zealand, we can sort of look at different things that they haven't had or they have had and find that the world has not stopped turning just because the debate’s a little bit different.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment

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RUBY:

Laura, when Australians look to New Zealand, I think they do see a country that looks similar to us but also seems less divided on social issues and on political issues. Can you tell me, do you think that that’s a fair assessment, and why?

LAURA:

I think it is less divided now, one of the reasons for that is that New Zealand has addressed some of the issues involved with its First Peoples.

It sought to make reparations or pay compensation to Maori for breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, the original settlement document of New Zealand.

And it's not just the sort of fact that they did that compensation negotiation, but in the process they also looked at truth telling and reconciliation. Maori culture has become much more central to New Zealand culture.

Archival Tape -- Jacinda Ardern:

“Kia Ora, I’m celebrating Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori - Maori language Week and I invite you all to join me. It goes without saying that Te Reo is a part of who we are as a nation.”

LAURA:

Now things are still not great for Maori as they are not for First Nations people in Australia, but I think it's better.

Archival Tape -- Jacinda Ardern:

“It’s those rangatahi who don’t have access to mental health services who take their lives, and it’s the incarceration of the Maori people disproportionately to everyone else. That is the distance between us.”

LAURA:

I think Australia is more divided and I think it's partly because of that sort of aspect of politics that we were talking about earlier, which is that our politicians are looking for difference.

Archival Tape -- News Reader #1:

“Prime Minister Scott Morrison will veto all moves to enshrine an Aboriginal voice to Parliament constitutionally…”

LAURA:

They're looking to polarise people.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“I am a constitutional conservative on these issues which comes as no surprise, the Liberal National Parties are constitutional conservatives on these issues…”

LAURA:

They're looking to make people feel angry and resentful about things. And I think that's sort of been amplified by the way the media has started to sort of split and become sort of very Balkanised as well. And I think it's just meant that we don't have very nuanced discussions about anything anymore.

RUBY:

Let's talk a little bit more about that, because one of the most noticeable differences between New Zealand and Australia is the concentration of media ownership. And by that I mean the fact that the Murdoch press doesn't have the same influence in New Zealand as it does here. So how has that changed the way that politics is debated publicly in New Zealand?

LAURA:

Look, the Australian media landscape has become a lot more divisive.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Man #1:

“You have to actually pity New Zealand over the next four years, their economy is going to go down the toilet.”

LAURA:

Without a doubt in the last 10 years in particular, it's become much more radically divided.
And I think that's sort of been exacerbated by the rise of social media because traditional media now feel like they're competing with Twitter and Facebook and the fact that people are all sort of expressing their views all over the place on those platforms.

Archival Tape -- Alan Jones:

“The lockdowns were amongst the toughest in the world. It is not only opposition accusations in New Zealand which are saying that these things have pushed the New Zealand economy off the cliff.”

LAURA:

So I think it has become much more divisive but more than the divisiveness, I just don't think it's become as informative. I just don’t - it's become much easier, particularly under commercial pressures, to have opinion in the media than it has to actually have reporting of the background of a story or to have to have some detail about, you know, how we got to where we got to because everything's moving so fast. There aren't enough reporters to do that work. And as I said, it's cheaper and sort of more controversial to have a lot of commentary.

RUBY:

Laura, you have been reporting on federal politics in Australia for decades. And I wonder what your reflections are on the way that Jacinda Ardern leads, and the political culture in New Zealand compared to what we’re seeing here. What does the comparison tell you about the state of Australian politics?

LAURA:

Well, I think it tells you that it's pretty depressing.

I think we tend to sort of look at what happens in our politics, you know, as most people do on a sort of day to day or week to week basis, or we might review the last few months. But if you think about it, what are politicians there for? They're there to serve the people. They're there to get the best outcomes for the people.

Now the things that are still driving our politics are still too often the quick political hit, the announceables, as they call them, the fact that you announce something but you never actually deliver on it. And this is something that's a particular factor with this government. They make announcements about spending things that they don't ever spend.

I think you look at the phenomenon of Ardern and you see a yearning by people for something better. I just think she represents a yearning not just in New Zealand but in a lot of places for politics to be done in a more sane and civilised way.

RUBY:

Laura, thank you so much for your time today.

LAURA:

I enjoyed talking to you. Thank you.

RUBY:

You can read more of Laura TIngle’s analysis on the relationship between Australia and New Zealand in her Quarterly Essay, The High Road.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

The Victorian government is demanding answers after two international arrivals were allowed to fly from Sydney to Melbourne without undergoing mandatory quarantine.

Authorities are investigating whether the two travellers, who arrived from Germany, misled officials.

And former US Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have volunteered to get their Covid-19 vaccines live on camera, to promote public confidence in the vaccine's safety.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, see you tomorrow.

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