Word: zealander
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Australia and New Zealand are drifting apart. The larger nation is buoyant and rich, while the smaller one is in a funk. The gap in average incomes between the countries has widened significantly in recent years to approximately 30%, drawing Kiwis across the Tasman in large numbers. Hanging over several of New Zealand's key industries (think banking), there's a branch-office stigma. Australia's Treasurer Peter Costello is chopping at tax rates with the glee of a burly bloke in a blue singlet. Kiwi workers complain that Costello's counterpart Michael Cullen is being a scrooge on fiscal...
...Looking at how these countries are adapting to geopolitical and economic forces, taking into account different aspirations and responsibilities, Australians are both more fearful and more engaged than New Zealanders. Australia's economic ambitions are closely entwined with the growth of China and India; the Kiwis are yet to be recognized as players in this game. Australia's government is strapped on to the Americans in Iraq, while its troops are leading local interventions in East Timor and the Solomons. Under Prime Minister John Howard, Australia's politics have shifted to the right. Although less "p.c." than she appeared...
...there are hard truths here for Australia and other mid-sized countries. For years, New Zealand has been viewed as a social and economic laboratory. Policy makers can see what works and what doesn't. Perhaps, as some are now suggesting, the Kiwi is becoming the canary in the coal mine of the new global economic order. According to David Skilling, chief executive of The New Zealand Institute, the health of the bird tells us how globalization affects countries on the periphery?and that, of course, includes Australia, despite being five times the size of its neighbor. Geography still matters...
...been a lack of strategic leadership. Not enough has been done to reposition the country to play to its competitive strengths by upgrading infrastructure, research and education. "Planning" remains a dirty word, says Skilling. As well, there has not been a willingness to experiment, boldly or persistently. New Zealand, burned by previous government follies, remains risk-averse. Third, the country has wasted a decade by not building broad political support for the new direction it needs to succeed under globalization; three-year election cycles don't help lawmakers to focus beyond small-view politics...
...years since, Away has conquered the world it so delightfully critiques, becoming Australia's most performed play?not only in its home country, where it is a staple of high-school reading lists, but also throughout Asia, North America and New Zealand. "Although a glossary of Australian idiom is provided in the program," noted the New York Times in 1988, "the pain and burdens Mr. Gow's characters carry with them really need no translation." And as a 20th anniversary staging by the Queensland Theatre Company and Griffin (which returned the play to its stage birthplace in Sydney last week...