In yet another American poll guaranteed to make folks unhappy down under, Australia failed to make the list of Americans’ favorite foreign countries. The top five were Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Japan and Israel. But a closer look at the Gallup poll holds — slightly — better news for Oz. They didn’t make the top five because they weren’t on the list of countries the pollsters asked about. The same thing happened last year; Australia wasn’t one of the choices on a Gallup poll asking what countries were America’s closest allies. That’s true although Australia is one of only a handful of countries that has helped the United States in all its major wars from World War Two to the present conflict in Afghanistan.
We could personalize this and ask why Gallup hates Australia, but something else is at work. Possibly because the two English speaking democracies at the other end of the world are so far away, and possible because they are seen as so friendly and so safe, the American media largely ignores everything that happens in the Antipodes. For evidence of this, just go to the Yahoo.com news site, where, dead last on the world news page, there’s a link to news from “Australia/Antarctica.” But look on the bright side, Australians: it could be “Antarctica/Australia.” When I checked the site’s front page this morning, there were 18 recent stories from this part of the world. Five of them were about whales — either being stranded or being hunted. Two were about a shark attack and the gallant granny who bashed the shark on the nose until it let her go. One was about flooding in Sydney. Another was a hard journalistic look at the use of cat food in the war against cane toads. After the nine nature stories came terror; there were four stories related to terrorism, one about an interview given by the always fascinating Colonel Qaddafi of Libya to an Australian television channel. Trade with China came next, with two stories. Mary Makillop’s sainthood, Pauline Hanson’s moving plans, and Quantas’ announcement that first class seats would be cut on some flights rounded out the news from down under.
Apparently, apart from the whales, cane toads and sharks, not much goes on down there. In New Zealand it all seems to be about animal euthanasia. There’s a page one story on some euthanized whales, and on page two there’s a heartwarming story about a New Zealand teenager who faced prosecution after taking his five month old puppy (Buck) from a veterinarian. Since the family couldn’t afford Buck’s expensive surgery needs after the puppy was hit by a car, the vet was going to have to euthanize him. 19 year old Bronson Stewart wasn’t having that and drove off with the pup, putting himself at risk under New Zealand’s anti-cruelty laws. The story, I am happy to report, turned out well. Once the generous New Zealand public became informed about Buck’s plight, the money was found to give him the operation. This story is datelined February 10; evidently since then New Zealand has been pretty quiet, except for the shocking whale tragedy.
In fact, Americans would have a great deal to gain by staying in touch with politics and culture in the nethermost dominions of the British Queen. The long and complex story of relations between the Maori and the rest of the New Zealand population has something to teach us about the opportunities and the complexities of multiculturalism. Australia’s struggle to choose between its strong environmental leanings and the economic interests of much of the country would help us gain perspective on some of our own issues. Australians spend a lot of time thinking about Indonesia and Asia more generally; we would be smarter about an important part of the world if we spent a little more time listening to what they have to say. I’ve recommended the Lowy Institute’s website for Americans interested in getting an Australian perspective on world affairs. The Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian are great newspapers you can follow on-line. Peter Hartcher at the Sydney Morning Herald is one of the great journalists working today anywhere. Peter was one of the first people to raise serious questions about Fed policy under Alan Greenspan; if I’d listened to him then I’d be a rich man today.
(And thanks as always to Sam Roggeveen at the Lowy Institute’s remarkable Interpreter for keeping me up to date on all matters Australian.)
In the meantime, I’m keeping my eye on the cane toad story. Apparently, someone has discovered that putting cat food by ponds where cane toads are hatching lures Australian ‘meat ants’ to the site. The swarms of meat ants not only scarf up the cat food; they go for the young cane toads. This is the most disturbing thing I’ve discovered about Australian wildlife since I found out that kangaroos lure dogs into ponds and drown them. A country where the meat ants devour the poison toads is the kind of place you have to respect; I think we should make it very clear to the Australians that we like them as people and respect them as allies, and please please don’t send us any meat ants.