Bedrock values
Don Brash, in a major speech today, said all immigrants to NZ should share our "bedrock" values. I think, over the coming days, we should offer Dr Brash some assistance in listing and defining the bedrock values of being a Kiwi.
Here are a few suggestions to kick off.
* Toast and Marmite are the two obligatory ingredients of any breakfast, though Weetbix are to be strongly encouraged. Funny foreign stuff like croissants and olives and fruit will not be tolerated, except for porridge on a cold winter's day which, being Scottish, is not of course foreign.
* There is no such thing as football. It's called soccer, because if one was to call it football that would grant it some kind of status that might elevate it above rugby. So that was the 2006 Soccer World Cup just contested. Good on those little Aussie battlers, eh! They're getting to be quite a good little sporting nation, on ya mate.
* We are at the forefront of the global fight against racism, and don't you forget it. We won't tolerate any of that racism stuff from you bigoted, one-eyed bloody immigrants/asylum seekers/refugees/criminals with burkhas and no idea of the importance of basic human rights. Remember we led the world in the fight against apartheid, and John Walker marked it by winning the 1500m at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. (Why wasn't that African runner chap there again?) The example we set in harmonious race relations was pretty much solely responsible for dismantling apartheid. Nelson Mandela said so, didn't he?
* We're actually pretty generally nice guys all round, good solid global citizens, and I'm really not sure what that Bob Geldof bloke was on about in pointing out that our international aid budget in one of the smallest, as a percentage of GDP, in the Western World. Anyway, didn't Paula Yates leave him for Michael Hutchence?
* Speaking of Antipodean celebs, we send our ambassadors of fair play out to be shining examples in the worlds of arts, sports and business. Russell Crowe throwing telephones and smacking people in bars? No no, he's an Australian. All that native logging that Fletcher was doing in Canada? That's called "sustainable clear-felling". And those rugby players that get arrested for drunken misdemeanours overseas? Corrupt foreign policing, I think you'll find. We're the good guys in world rugby - look at the way we support and encourage the development of Fijian and Tongan rugby.
* It’s been said that just as the USA has the Statue of Liberty, so too should we have the Statue of Equality. And we do. It is the one of former premier John Ballance in Moutoa Gardens, Wanganui, that had its head lopped off for his contribution to race relations, encouraging the retention of Maori land, and getting women the vote. Because, of course, the easiest way to encourage equality is by cutting down the tall poppies. Call it “Restoring the Ballance”.
* We are 100% Pure, clean and green, as green as the driven snow that accumulates beneath the Whakapapa skifield restaurants’ kitchen overflows on busy long weekends.
* We are a small, homogeneous South Pacific nation. We are all the same. The values we all share are as secure and unshakeable as the bedrock upon which our nation sits.
Here are a few suggestions to kick off.
* Toast and Marmite are the two obligatory ingredients of any breakfast, though Weetbix are to be strongly encouraged. Funny foreign stuff like croissants and olives and fruit will not be tolerated, except for porridge on a cold winter's day which, being Scottish, is not of course foreign.
* There is no such thing as football. It's called soccer, because if one was to call it football that would grant it some kind of status that might elevate it above rugby. So that was the 2006 Soccer World Cup just contested. Good on those little Aussie battlers, eh! They're getting to be quite a good little sporting nation, on ya mate.
* We are at the forefront of the global fight against racism, and don't you forget it. We won't tolerate any of that racism stuff from you bigoted, one-eyed bloody immigrants/asylum seekers/refugees/criminals with burkhas and no idea of the importance of basic human rights. Remember we led the world in the fight against apartheid, and John Walker marked it by winning the 1500m at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. (Why wasn't that African runner chap there again?) The example we set in harmonious race relations was pretty much solely responsible for dismantling apartheid. Nelson Mandela said so, didn't he?
* We're actually pretty generally nice guys all round, good solid global citizens, and I'm really not sure what that Bob Geldof bloke was on about in pointing out that our international aid budget in one of the smallest, as a percentage of GDP, in the Western World. Anyway, didn't Paula Yates leave him for Michael Hutchence?
* Speaking of Antipodean celebs, we send our ambassadors of fair play out to be shining examples in the worlds of arts, sports and business. Russell Crowe throwing telephones and smacking people in bars? No no, he's an Australian. All that native logging that Fletcher was doing in Canada? That's called "sustainable clear-felling". And those rugby players that get arrested for drunken misdemeanours overseas? Corrupt foreign policing, I think you'll find. We're the good guys in world rugby - look at the way we support and encourage the development of Fijian and Tongan rugby.
* It’s been said that just as the USA has the Statue of Liberty, so too should we have the Statue of Equality. And we do. It is the one of former premier John Ballance in Moutoa Gardens, Wanganui, that had its head lopped off for his contribution to race relations, encouraging the retention of Maori land, and getting women the vote. Because, of course, the easiest way to encourage equality is by cutting down the tall poppies. Call it “Restoring the Ballance”.
* We are 100% Pure, clean and green, as green as the driven snow that accumulates beneath the Whakapapa skifield restaurants’ kitchen overflows on busy long weekends.
* We are a small, homogeneous South Pacific nation. We are all the same. The values we all share are as secure and unshakeable as the bedrock upon which our nation sits.
posted by Jonathan Milne at 10:00 am
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