“The Great Debate Day”

 

John Drummond and Bruce Cowan presented a lively and entertaining debate to a very appreciative and large audience of members last Thursday- Should Australia become a province of New Zealand?  The Rules were simple- each was allowed 5 minutes to convince us, and then follow up with a 3-minute right of reply. A show of hands would decide it. Grant and Peter were the judges.

 

John argued that Kiwis should feel sorry for Aussies. He argued that Aussies were weird, weren’t very smart, and were uncouth. Examples were that they wore thongs and called their females ‘sheilas’. Their proudest tourist attraction was a large rock in the middle of Australia. They weren’t at all smart as illustrated by the blunders of their last Prime Minister and they were defeated in 1932 when they waged wars against the emus. Their national song was Waltzing Matilda!  John asked how this could have happened and reminded us that they had come from a bunch of criminals and as their neighbours we had a duty to help them. We should feel sorry for them as it was not their fault and welcome them in, teach them respect for their women and their indigenous folk. He ended by urging us to be compassionate and rescue the Aussies from themselves by showing them what they could be. He concluded by saying this was why we have to make them a province of NZ.

 

Bruce gave us 10 reasons why it wouldn’t be a good idea to make Australia a province of NZ.

 

NZ doesn't like Aussies
Aussies treat us with contempt (eg banning our apples, not providing the same benefits to Kiwis living in Australia)
Their placenames were far too long and wouldn’t fit on our road signs.
Their country is divided into states. NZ found provincial government didn’t work and abolished them in 1876.
Australia’s political structure with a written constitution and state and federal government wouldn’t work for NZ
Australia is 30 times larger in land space – trying to take over Australia with our 3 frigates would be like a David and Goliath exercise.
Australia has all sorts of pests and poisonous creatures which we would not want.
We are nuclear free, and Australia is not.
We couldn’t afford Australia’s national debt.
We wouldn’t want their carbon emissions.

Bruce then had a right of reply to John’s arguments. Bruce referred to John’s argument that we have a mission to rescue the Aussies but reminded us that we have a greater mission to look after our own people.  Why would we want to join forces with a group who were uncouth and came from a bunch of criminals?  They came from a group of immigrants who were deported there, but our people choose to come to NZ. Aussies have stolen our coaches and our pavlova for all of these reasons there is no way Australia should become a province of NZ

 

John summed up by referring to Bruce’s 10 reasons.

He asked where our milk of human kindness is and reminded us that we shouldn’t be looking at it as a matter of the head, as it is a matter of the heart, and we have a moral responsibility to help them. He finished by telling us there would be two obvious benefits to joining the 2 countries-

We could send them Winston Peters. It would be a win/win situation, and
The Aussie cricketers would be on our side.