"The Standard" clearly sets out the political views of at least some
of its authors - see https://thestandard.org.nz/about/

Having said that, the following article is entirely consistent with
what they say about themselves, and this is a post from this morning. https://thestandard.org.nz/weve-lost-australia/

My question to those who oppose the labour movement and political
party is - is there anything in that post that New Zealanders should
disagree with? And if so, why?

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On Mon, 12 May 2025 09:04:44 +1200, Rich80105 <[email protected]>
wrote:

"The Standard" clearly sets out the political views of at least some
of its authors - see https://thestandard.org.nz/about/

Having said that, the following article is entirely consistent with
what they say about themselves, and this is a post from this morning. >https://thestandard.org.nz/weve-lost-australia/

My question to those who oppose the labour movement and political
party is - is there anything in that post that New Zealanders should
disagree with? And if so, why?

First of all I have no problem with the Standard expressing its
viewpoint.

In the article you cited they start with a questionable premise - "New
Zealand was once in a sustained Australasian partnership. Now, with
New Zealand tracking further and further into policy extremes,
Australia � and our children � are leaving New Zealand behind."
However no historical context has been offered to back these claims.

I have lived most of my life in NZ and left school without getting
school certificate at the end of 1965. NZ has ALWAYS been an unequal
part of Australia and this is a left-over of our rejecting the
invitation to join Australia when they established their Federal
Government.

In my entire lifetime, Australia has always been promoted as bigger,
better and with more diverse opportunities than NZ. Emigration to
Australia has been a constant issue that NZ can never hope to address.
The Australian Government, for many years, has failed to grant NZers
the same pathway to citizenship there as we have always done for the
few Australians that moved here to become NZ citizens. They have just
recently stopped the unjust practice of deporting NZ-born but
Australian-raised crims to NZ. To imply that this is a recent trend
is mind blowing stupidity.

The article then goes on to make claims about how well the Australian government has performed. This is clearly a 'party political
broadcast'. It totally ignores the fact that the Australian Labour
Party has not managed to consistently win elections, much like their
NZ counterpart.

From this premise they then launch into a demolition job on the
current NZ Government, implying that emigration levels of today are
new when they are not. Unsubstantiated claims are made about NZ
Government policies. If any of this was true then National/NZ
First/ACT would be well behind Labour/Watermelon/TMP polling. They
are not because the sentiments expressed are simply untrue.

Australia does so well because of its extensive mineral wealth. When
it comes to agricultural production Australia is incredibly backward
because their climate is so extreme and soil quality so bad. We
measure herds in terms of animals per hectare, they measure herds in
terms of hectares per animal.

Lastly lets look at the Labor Party (Australia) and the Labour Party
(NZ). Apart from their name and similar heritage, what do they have
in common? If Labor are doing well how does that extend to Labour
doing so well? Its just nonsense.

I am surprised that the article author has not thought to raise the
wisdom of NZ joining the Federation as the 7th state (note that the
Northern Territory is not a state). The Australian economy would not
notice, Wellington would become a state capital and NZ would benefit
from all those achievements the article outlines.



--
Crash McBash

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Rich80105 <[email protected]> wrote:

"The Standard" clearly sets out the political views of at least some
of its authors - see https://thestandard.org.nz/about/

Having said that, the following article is entirely consistent with
what they say about themselves, and this is a post from this morning. >https://thestandard.org.nz/weve-lost-australia/

My question to those who oppose the labour movement and political
party is - is there anything in that post that New Zealanders should
disagree with? And if so, why?

First of all this is clearly not intended for me, I have never opposed the Labour movement, in fact I have actively supported it. I have also never opposed the Labour party having voted for them and some of their candidates over the years. I understand that it is politically convenient for some to believe that because I saw the last Labour government as dangerous and incompetent then I am opposed to Labour and its affiliates and supporters (like the unions). That is wrong and always has been. I have posted here more than once that I saw the first 6 years of the Clark government as reasonably competent and Clark as extremely so (politically). I also saw the Lange government as a breath of fresh air after Muldoon and helped to kick Muldoon out in my small way (like us all with my vote). The Lange government unfortumnately did not live up to its promise, despite Lange being a caring and intelligent man (I met him several times and admired him a great deal).

So to the substance of the post.
The Standard is not an organisation that has some left wing sympathisers, it is "fundamentally" left wing. There is nothing wrong with that, just that to deny it is pointless and disingenuous. There is no attempt to be balanced in any of its posts that I have seen.

Australia has never been a true partner to this country, it has always gone its own way and when I lived there for a few years I supported that - once more, there is nothing wrong with that. There has never been real cooperation between the countries except when it suited us both. Refusal for decades by Australia to easily allow NZ citizens to become Australian as of right (which is the case the other way round after a qualifying period) and the refusal by Australia to accept responsibility for the behaviour of criminals who were born there and never been to NZ but were NZ citizens is evidence of a one way relationship. They have always been the richer nation and always will be, and that's OK.

Don't get me wrong, Australia is a great country and Australians are generally very similar to us in terms of their behaviour and integrity. They do tend to be gently patronising of us.

The Standard article is pure politics and does not get close to reflecting the true relationship between the countries either now or in the past. To suggest that the Labor party (Australia) and the Labour party here have a lot in common is just silly. They do not.

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