NEW ZEALAND VERSUS AUSTRALIA

Googling the above title will get you to a rugby match.  At least TV channels must have continuous games.  New Zealand and Australia are so alike and so different.  For one, Australia is 28 times larger, with 5 times more people.  Australian exports are mostly natural mineral resources, while that of NZ is agricultural.  Sydney has more than 10 times the population of Auckland.  The Aboriginal percentage is about 1 for Australia, while the Maori figure is 9% in NZ.

They are both in the middle of winter (equivalent to January 8 in the USA), but the temperatures are fine for walking if sunny.  English is spoken, of course, as both were British colonies, and still consider Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state.  Ninety five percent of Aussies are Caucasian, but there seems to be a lot more Asians now in Sydney, with the influence of Greece, the Middle East and former Soviet countries significant to me.  I bet you wouldn't know which flag is which:

Answer:  NZ left (above).  Four red (with white outline) stars of five points are symbolic of the Southern Cross.  For Australia, the five stars to the right are more descriptive of the Southern Cross, while the large one to the left represents states and territories.  Note that four out of five to the right, and the big one, have seven points, but the tiny one only has five.  Best as I can figure out is that this had something to do with economics.  What?  All are white.  Is anyone still reading this?  British colonies had the Union Jack, and the Hawaii State flag does, too, because we were once governed by Great Britain.

There is a love-hate relationship between the peoples of these nations, and the rivalries in certain sport events are legendary.  They both now have excellent wines, with the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from Malborough sold (at high prices) around the world.  It all started with Cloudy Bay nearly 30 years ago.  Australia has the edge in red wines, with Penfold's 2004 Block 42 Cabernet Sauvignon (right) known to be the most expensive:  $168,000.

Not that I can tell, but the Australian accent is a combination of London cockney (convicts) with a smattering of Irish from the Goldrush.  In NZ, the heavy influence came from Scotland, with a touch of Maori.  Some of the early settlers to NZ also came from Australia, so there is that influence.

NZ has no snakes or scorpions, while Australia has the highest proportion of poisonous animals in the world.  Ninety percent of NZ insects are found nowhere else, and they are unique in being so huge--that giant weta above is the heaviest insect in the world. Australia has all kinds of animals with a wide variety of marsupials (like kangaroos).  NZ has only two natural mammals:  bats.

Australia has no active volcanoes.  New Zealand has up to 60, with two currently erupting, including Ngaruahoe, which has been active for half a century.  I stayed at a hotel at the foot of this volcano more than a third of a century ago.  That recent photo to the right is similar to what I saw then.  Interestingly enough, I was golfing at the Volcano Golf Course on the Big Island of Hawaii on 3January1983 when the current eruption started on Kilauea.  Thus, NZ is #4 in geothermal energy electricity (U.S. is #1 in power, but China is #1 for all uses of this resource).

While Australia was lightly bombarded by Germany and Japan in World War II, no troops invaded the country, nor New Zealand.  However, a million Aussies served and New Zealand was the first country to declare war on Germany.  Australia was quite involved in the Iraq war, while New Zealand stayed clear.  While the U.S. is sending troops to Australia, we just denied two New Zealand navy ships from docking at Pearl Harbor, payback for their not allowing our nuclear ships there.  I certainly agree with Ron Paul that we should be bringing troops home, not sending another 2500 to a country like Australia.  People don't realize that the actual cost of this deployment will be close to a billion dollars/year, plus any construction cost.  Why?  Yes, China, of course, but....why?

Auckland is sort of like the equivalent of Honolulu-Oahu-Hawaii in that there are only a little more than 300,000 living in the city, but 1.4 million in the whole metro area.  The Maori tribes are well organized and gaining significant concessions from the government.  Something to watch as Hawaiians attempt to assert themselves.  On a totally different subject, primary schools are beginning to drop teaching The Bible in class as students don't want to take them and parents don't seem to care.  Schools are suggesting that Christian values should be taught at home.

In any case, Australia and New Zealand are good neighbors and allies.  Their respective Prime Ministers are Julia Gillard and John Key: