By Situation Theatre 29/9/2018

New Zealand, we’ll give you literally almost anything, just let us have a Prime Minister who is actually familiar with the concept of kindness.

To our dear friends across the Tasman,

We’re sorry for trying to steal Sam Neill, Split Enz, and Lorde from you. You’ve got some great stuff, can you blame us?

We’re sorry for bowling underarm to you.

We’re sorry for all the sheep jokes.

Now can we please have Jacinda Ardern on permanent loan?

You’ve got the youngest female world leader, the second elected leader in history to have a baby in office, and the only one to bring her baby to the UN.

We’ve got our first Pentecostal PM, yet another good Christian leader who is happy to torture refugee men, women and children in offshore concentration camps, and the only one to bring a lump of coal to Parliament.

Your leader opened her speech to the UN with several lines of the native language of Indigenous Kiwis, te reo Māori, called for gender equality and climate action as part of a new era of kindness and collectivism, and said New Zealand remains committed to “building and sustaining international peace and security, to promoting and defending an open, inclusive and rules based international order based on universal values, to being pragmatic, empathetic, strong and kind”.

Our leader would open with the line “Did anyone see me at the Dally M awards the other night?”, call for defending patriarchy and coal as part of an old era of hatefulness and aggressive nationalism, and say that Australia remains committed to “building and sustaining international war and insecurity, to promoting and defending a closed, exclusive, and Trump based international order based on his values, to being autocratic, kleptocratic, selfish and cruel”.

You may say your Prime Minister isn’t perfect, but we’ll take less than perfect over a hypocritical human rights abuser any day of the week.

Kind regards,

Australia