WHO do you think you are?
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For a dinky-di Aussie like National Party leader Barnaby Joyce it must have come as a shock to learn that our friends over the ditch had claimed him as one of their own.
Whip-cracking Barnaby has been running with the wrong whanau!
The born-and-bred Tamworth boy, with an Australian-born mum and great grandmother, is the son-of-a-Kiwi-gun who migrated to Australia in the late 1940s.
In the wake of Greens’ senators Scott Ludlam (New Zealand) and Larissa Waters (Canada) quitting within four days of each other in July over dual citizenship issues, the High Court of Australia must now deliberate over who has first dibs on Barnaby.
It shouldn’t be too hard as Australia has a long and proud history of giving and taking away New Zealand status.
Gifted Australian actor Russell Crowe won an Academy Award for Best Actor for Gladiator and was nominated for The Insider and A Beautiful Mind but he was conveniently a perturbed Kiwi for those four altercations in the six years to 2005. (Well, he is a New Zealand citizen after all and two of his first cousins captained the Black Caps. You really can’t get much more Kiwi! How’s thet!!)
Champion Australian thoroughbred racehorse Phar Lap was, of course, born in New Zealand and trained and raced in Australia during the Depression years.
Now his mounted hide is displayed at the Melbourne Museum, his skeleton at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and his heart at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra. (It’s a fun fact that Barnaby need never know!)
We were collectively tone-deaf when the epic Melbourne band, fronted by Kiwi Neil Finn, referenced its lyrical homeland.
She came all the way from America, She had a blind date with destiny, And the sound of Te Awamutu, Had a truly sacred ring.
Yes, our band Crowded House had its reunion gigs at the Sydney Opera House. Where else?
While the High Court chews over the real identity of Barnaby Joyce, it may ponder this tried and true method of nationality.
Kiwi Citizenship Test:
- Do you have Barker’s of New Zealand Traditional Slow-Cooked Jam, previously sold under the Anathoth Farm brand, in the fridge?
- Do you pledge allegiance to Marlborough sauvignon blanc and Martinborough pinot noir?
- Can you spell Aotearoa?
- Do you promise to ensure that the Australians will never-ever live down Trevor Chappell’s unsporting, underarm bowl along the ground on February 1, 1981?
- Do you speak fluent Rugby?
- Do you espouse that Six Months in a Leaky Boat belongs in the top 10 songs of all time?
- When you read out the above question: Did you say Number Sex and Sex Months in a Leaky Boat?
- Do you own a pair of possum socks?
- Do you know the difference between a dairy and a dairy?
- Do you know the words to God Defend New Zealand including the sweet az Maori bits? I want the All Blacks to win every time I hear the New Zealand anthem.
I may be speaking out of turn but I don’t believe Barnaby will pass The Pub Test over the ditch.
Senator Joyce will still be calling Australia home for a while to come yet.