Australia is an awesome country. As an australian, I know this, because Australians keep telling me about how awesome and great this country is. Australia is the best country on the earth, and to not think so is unAustralian, even if you’re not an Australian.

Well Australia, this week, we got shown up by our cousins across the ditch. You know, New Zealand. Remember them?

I wasn’t sure where to start this blog post, then I remembered, ANZAC day is coming up. A day to remember Australians and New Zealanders, who have fought for the freedoms we hold so dear. You see Australia and New Zealand are Rey much alike, or at least we were.

While Australia has been going around beating it’s chest about how great a country it is, and how much we punch above our weight on the world stage, New Zealand has just been quietly getting on with the job of actually achieving.

In Australia, we pump our fist in the air, because in 2008, Kevin Rudd said sorry to the Indigenous people of the nation. It was a worthy thing, and a step in the right direction, but little more.

In New Zealand, they signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, and got on with it from there. Today, students learn about the history of their country, both traditional, and since colonisation.

It’s just one example I’ve given there, because it’s really late for me, and I need to get to bed, but when it comes to punching above our weight, Australia punches a feather more than we weigh, and New Zealand punches a pile of bricks.

Which brings me to the point in question with this blog post. This week New Zealand defined marriage as a thing of beauty. It’s between two people. Plain and simple, of you love someone, and want to spend the rest of your life with them, go for it.

They debated it, they looked at all the pros and cons, and finally worked out, that it’s a matter of treating everyone equally, and to not do that, is wrong. People from both all sides of politics had their say, and as is the case everywhere this debate happens, those who it won’t affect we’re the most ardent against it. But at the end of the day, the vote was passed, not for political gain, but to correct a wrong. A wrong that treated people as different. As second class. As not worthy of being part of the society in which they live, all because they love someone.

I think back to what I was taught about Australia when I was growing up. That this country is a land of opportunity. Where if someone was willing to give it a go, they could do so, and would be treated fairly and equally. When did we drop the ball Australia? Instead of being a proud nation that other countries looked up to, we are becoming the laughing stock of the world. If we want to be the lucky country again, we need to look to the east, to a group of islands, and see how it is done.

New Zealand, I thank you. You lead the way in being the moral compass under the Southern Cross, and we could well do with following from your lead.