People have a habit of lumping Australians and New Zealanders together because of some shared traits and common colonial heritage. Understandable, yes, but also wrong in many ways.
You hear them on trains, in pubs, at popular tourist attractions just about everywhere. Cheery 20-somethings from Down Under doing their famous global ‘walkabout’. Historically, Aussies and Kiwis have banded together on this grand tour, so it’s not surprising the world sometimes (con)fuses them.
But why are they hard to distinguish? Geographical proximity is not enough. You have to add some historical and cultural heritage for a truer picture; their shared British colonial ties and, by default, adoption of the English language, cricket, rugby, and mulish traits typical of many island nations.
Both countries are still members of the Commonwealth, retain an English regent on their currency, and continue with some arcane legal ties despite domestic pressure to sever them once and for all, including a failed Australian Republic Referendum in 1999.
Because they both lie in the southern hemisphere (the Antipodes), the rest of the world thinks they are basically neighbours. After more than 25 hours of flight-hopping to Australia, the last 2000km stretch over the Tasman Sea to New Zealand seems negligible in comparison.
Both countries feature unique fauna – kangaroos, kiwis, koalas, etc. – as part of their sporting, cultural and political identity. And to the untuned ear, Australians and New Zealanders also sound very similar.
1. Identity forged in wartime heroism
Anthony Smith’s 1991 book ‘National Identity’ explores the regional, ethnic and linguistic characteristics that shape identity. A nation needs “a glorious past, a golden age of saints and heroes, to give meaning to its promise of restoration and dignity”, he posits.
But where does that leave relatively young nations like Australia and New Zealand? Indigenous stories, songs and rituals like Aboriginal Dreaming (Jukurrpa origin) and Māori Whakapapa are important to Australian and New Zealand identity, respectively, today. The same can’t be said when these new nation states (see Paul Wilkinson’s definition) started to emerge at the turn of the 19th century.
According to Jed Donoghue and Bruce Tranter in ‘The Anzac Myth and Australian Identity’, “The Anzacs are the closest Australia comes to approximating the ‘saints and heroes’ of a golden age.” As a “relatively young settler society” stories of brave Antipodeans fighting together – or separately under British command – in the trenches of World War I (WWI) have become a surrogate historical reference.
The term ‘Anzac’ was reportedly first used in army despatches in 1915 as shorthand for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, notes the Anzac Portal in its account of how the legend was born. “The two corps were part of the British-commanded Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, which fought against the Ottoman Empire at Gallipoli in 1915.”
Some experts explain the Anzac mashup as military expediency; others suggest it came down to geography, cultural similarities, and the timing of their entry into the war. Whatever the reason, thanks to the sheer scale of the conflict and losses incurred, WWI became a nation-shaping experience for both nascent countries.
Out of a population of just over 1 million in 1914, around 120,000 New Zealanders enlisted in WWI, 16,000 died and 41,000 were wounded. Australia’s total population at the time was about 4 million, and of the 417,000 who enlisted 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed or taken prisoner.
2. Natural allies with common enemies
Competition – bordering on sibling rivalry – between neighbouring countries is not unusal. In this case it tends to come out in cricket and rugby union, with the ‘All Blacks’ customarily overcoming an underdone Wallabies. Yet while the rivalry is real during international competitions, fevered passions quickly transfer to a mutual enemy when a winner is decided. And there is no greater foe than England!
When young Aussies and Kiwis are globetrotting they often base themselves in ‘Kangaroo Valley’ (Earls Court) and other locations around London. They band together out of a sense kinship so far from home, explains Simon, an expat New Zealander who recalls long sessions with Aussies in the Walkabout Pub (circa 1990s) located in Shepherds Bush.
Despite the typical “barbs and wind ups” between Aussies and Kiwis, he says they tend to stand side by side against the “Poms” in rugby. “Losing at Twickenham against the English is a Kiwi’s worst nightmare!” Now living in Brussels, Simon still seeks the company of Australians, and regularly visits family living in Sydney.
“Australia and New Zealand are natural allies with a strong trans-Tasman sense of family,” confirms the Australian Government’s briefing on New Zealand. “Migration, trade and defence ties, keen competition on the sporting field, and strong people-to-people links have helped shape a close and co-operative relationship.”
Australia and New Zealand are more than friends.
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) April 22, 2023
We are whānau – family.
And from July 1, there will be a direct pathway for eligible New Zealand citizens to Australian Citizenship. pic.twitter.com/eBLZE2rsxC
Citizens from either country can travel, live and work in the other thanks to the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement and the Australia-New Zealand Social Security Agreement. An estimated 670,000 Kiwis – around 15% of the country’s total population – live in Australia, with concentrations in three eastern states (Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria) effectively facing New Zealand.
Whereas only around 75,000 of Australia’s 26.6 million population call New Zealand home. This imbalance is reflected in the vastly different scale of the two countries and translates directly into more commercial, cultural, and career opportunities for New Zealanders relocating to their larger neighbour.
Australia is about 19 times bigger than New Zealand and has five cities with more than 1.4 million inhabitants, two of which (Sydney and Melbourne) are upwards of 5.2 million. Landlocked Canberra, the capital, has nearly half a million. New Zealand, meanwhile, has Auckland with over 1.5 million, a handful of medium-sized cities like Christchurch with 403,000, and the capital Wellington with 214,000.
3. Soapy tensions
Tensions do flair up in trade and sensitive policy areas – New Zealand is strictly anti-nuclear, Australia less so – and over highly charged events such as Covid lockdowns, and reactions to an Australian gunman’s 2019 murder spree in Christchurch.
The issue of language and cultural appropriation are other potential flashpoints. Fans of Australian soaps like Neighbours and Home and Away or New Zealand comedy Flight of the Conchords think they can discern one accent from the other, only to fall foul when they guess wrongly.
— Out of Context Flight of the Conchords (@OCConchords) August 10, 2020
For speculators, the advice is to say ‘New Zealand’ first because Australians tend to be less offended by being mistaken for their smaller – usually more modest and favourably regarded – neighbour. A similar dynamic exists between Canada and America.
Both countries drift up in tone at the end of a sentence – almost forming a permanent question. But you can hear some clear differences in the pronunciation of vowels. Australians tend to flatten the ‘a’ and ‘i’ in words like ‘car’ or ‘trip’, while New Zealanders pinch them.
“Growing up as a young bloke in northwest Australia, the differences I saw were really superficial,” explains Lorne, an expat in Belgium. “The accent was the obvious thing; something to rib each other about.”
But most Australians of a certain (pre-internet) generation had limited exposure to New Zealanders unless living in cities where they congregate. He does remember things like the Footrot Flats comic strip, Dave Dobbyn’s Slice of Heaven and I Got You by Split Enz. “Sport stood out too, with the Kiwis being dead-set rugby fans while West Australians are more fanatical about Aussie Rules.”
For Lorne, some political differences became more visible in native title and social issues from the 1980s onwards: “New Zealand established a treaty with its First Nation people quite early, something that Australia was (and still is) struggling with.”
Usually flying under the radar compared to Australia, the Kiwis were thrust into the limelight on nuclear and environmental issues, he recalls: “There was a ban on nuclear warships entering the country, which annoyed the Americans, and New Zealand responded strongly to a French attack on the Greenpeace boat ‘Rainbow Warrior’.”
That took political courage and “big thinking” standing up to larger countries, he believes, lamenting that Australia usually isn’t as daring: “Looking at it from abroad, its Indigenous Voice vote in 2023 feels like a lost opportunity!”
4. Ruffling feathers beyond the British bubble
It’s hard to get a sense of how Aussies and Kiwis are viewed outside the English-speaking colonial bubble. If a European is asked about such parochial hair-splitting they are likely to demur, feeling ill-equipped to offer opinions on the differences between two countries on the other side of the planet. Finding candidates who are familiar with both countries is even harder. But Swedish journalist Henrik, who recently returned to Europe from a working holiday Down Under, was up to the challenge.
New Zealand’s striking nature, laidback people and serene towns really stood out: “It feels like stepping back in time, maybe to a Nordic 1950s. For a European, it’s fascinating to board a domestic flight without any security checks; a sense of innocence characterises the entire country.”
Everyone from immigrant guest workers to cruise passengers speaks warmly of Kiwi hospitality, but at the same time, Henrik is surprised by the lack of spark in the cities: “Auckland must be the world’s largest small town!”
A stark contrast to what he discovered on the next leg of the tour over the Tasman. “What a relief it is – in that sense – when you land in Sydney, the world’s smallest and most accessible metropolis.” He marvelled at the architecture, restaurants, and vibrant people: “It’s sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll without the grittiness we see in European cities like Berlin, Stockholm, or Brussels – at least not on the tourist-friendly surface I scratched.”
5. Lessons in equanimity
‘Which one are you… Australian right?’ Silence.
Of course, no international incident will ever be triggered if you happen to mix up these (rather) similar and increasingly aligned nations tucked into the southern hemisphere. But for regions facing tensions over trade, territory, faith and all manner of beefs – real or inveigled – perhaps some lessons can be extracted on how they reached this state of equanimity.
