Say what you will about Russell Crowe, the man is not short of ideas. And his latest – that Australia and his native New Zealand should merge under the leadership of Jacinda Ardern – is so strong an idea that we’re annoyed we’re not already doing it, if only so we can have double Southern Crosses on the flag.
Arden, as you are most likely aware, is the Prime Minister of New Zealand and is in the unusual position of being a world leader who is well-liked and running a government which appears to be functioning nicely.
She recently did a magnificent speech at the United Nations and then charmed the hell out of Stephen Colbert on US television by seeming like a smart, capable person doing a job to the best of her considerable ability. And she admitted she was wearing double Spanx for it too.
To be fair, one layer was spanx and one layer was a pregnancy belly band. #Glamour
Posted by Jacinda Ardern on Monday, 1 October 2018
Hell, she even gave a top-notch put-down to the question of whether having to travel about the place with her newborn daughter Neve was a distraction or a blessing by saying it was better described as a necessity since she was breastfeeding said offspring.
Because everyone on twitter's been asking to see Neve's UN id, staff here whipped one up.
I wish I could have captured the startled look on a Japanese delegation inside UN yesterday who walked into a meeting room in the middle of a nappy change.
Great yarn for her 21st. pic.twitter.com/838BI96VYX— Clarke Gayford (@NZClarke) September 24, 2018
So Crowe’s tweet wasn’t exactly coming out of nowhere when he said…
Look… just accept it… she’s awesome. Is it time to make Australia and New Zealand into one country with @jacindaardern as PM ?
Not trying to be controversial … just practical. https://t.co/YOdIyhL3wR— Russell Crowe (@russellcrowe) September 29, 2018
And look, from 1788 until 1817 New Zealand was technically part of NSW, until the courts determined that it was its own British colony and then its own independent country in 1852. Whether this was just to save Arthur Philip a really annoying commute from Sydney is a mystery for historians to unravel.
So what Rusty’s saying isn’t unprecedented – and that’s before you consider that Ardern has won more federal elections than the current Australian PM.
Heck, for the matter, precisely as many Australian voters cast a ballot for Ardern to be leader of the nation as they did for Scott Morrison. If anything, it’s possibly our only chance to become a functioning democracy again.