O glorious day. Not since Rita Ora and Zac Efron (or their identical twins, or indeed, someone who looked a bit like them), allegedly attended an open house in Byron Bay have local celebrity spotters been given such a magnificent shot in the arm. The news this week that former New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern was shefting across the detch – sorry, shifting across the ditch – to Sydney for the foreseeable future differed from the usual “famous person moving to Australia” claptrap in one critical respect: it turns out the story was actually right.
So, welcome to your new home, Jacinda. We hate politicians but we heart celebrities. And technically you are more of the former and less of the latter, but you married the latter, which makes you less of the former. Good lord, I’m glad we got that straightened out.
Meanwhile, as an Australian by way of New Zealand, you obviously don’t require a citizenship test (and as canvassed, you’re famous so we’re going to let you stay either way), but immigration is obviously a bit of a hornet’s nest at the minute, so on behalf of Pauline Hanson and the rest of our self-appointed gatekeepers, here’s a list of Advice You Must Heed If You Plan To Hang Around:
We own you
This is a bit awkward because you’ve just arrived, but you’re ours now and no amount of documentation stating otherwise is going to change that.
Possession is nine-tenths of the law, friend, and anyway, we have numerous precedents when it comes to celebrities who were once egregiously misidentified as New Zealanders just because they were born there. To wit, Australia owns Russell Crowe.
We also own Crowded House and Jane Campion and Barnaby Joyce and that nice Rebecca Gibney. We own the ghosts of Phar Lap and Sir Edmund Hillary. We used to own Keith Urban, but he seems to have done Nicole Kidman dirty (we own her, too, BTW), so the other motherland can have him back. OK, fine, they can have Barnaby back as well. The one carve-out to all this, of course, is that if you decide to pursue a career in rugby league and get picked for State of Origin, you will cease to be ours and immediately become the property of Queensland.
Other things Australia, not New Zealand, owns
Lamingtons and pavlovas and flat whites. I don’t make the rules, babe.
Terminology
Here are some important terms you will need to familiarise yourself with: it’s thongs not Jandals, buggered not munted, esky not chilly bin, holiday house not bach, hiking not tramping, and awesome not choice. In exchange for your co-operation in memorising these words, we will show our appreciation by never, ever referring to you by your proper name under any circumstances. You got that, Ardo/Ardsy/Jassy/J-Dog?
Bad with the good
As one of us, you’ve got to take the bad with the good. You now haven’t won a Bledisloe Cup series in 23 years and counting, you’re partly responsible for the underarm ball in cricket, and whatever you’ve heard from delusional locals, the ski scene isn’t as good here. That’s all the terrible news out of the way. No, wait, I thought of something else. You used to have the haka to frighten the opposition; now you have whatever routine Raygun has been cooking up in her basement.
Real estate lingo
I hear you’re looking to settle in Sydney’s Curl Curl or Freshwater, which presumably means you’re about to start house-hunting. Don’t be fooled by the local real estate patois: you’ll be paying in New Zealand dollars for something near a beach, which means the asking price starts at a fafillion bajillion Australian dollars and will increase exponentially if you want something with a roof or a footprint larger than your seven-year-old daughter’s.
Barbie talking points
Just on that, Australian city dwellers, especially the Sydney- and Melbourne-based varietals, are typically obsessed with three things: real estate, private schools and renovations. You might not yet have settled on a house or a school, which will leave you casing around for talking points at the next backyard barbie. Go there armed with a reciprocating saw and aim to work the phrase “that bloody builder” into as many sentences as possible. You get bonus points if he was last seen absconding back to Christchurch.
IQ v traffic queue
Your decision to move here has been described as symptomatic of New Zealand’s “brain drain”, which has apparently seen your best and brightest pick up and flee to greener pastures, or in this case, fancy manicured lawns on the Northern Beaches. I don’t know what you’ve heard about the collective IQ of Australians, but five minutes in gridlock on Pittwater Road, with some clown on an e-bike tailgating you before trying to overtake on your left, should disabuse you of the notion that we are a nation of smart people.
Again though, Jacinda, welcome to Australia. You might find the Central Otago pinot more exxy than expected, and you’ll go broke on tolls if you want an audience with your Bondi-dwelling compatriots, but as your Kiwi brethren would say, it’ll be sweet as, bro.
Michelle Cazzulino is a Sydney writer.
