- Kia ora, ladies and gentlemen.
Now, I know it's been a big week
for New Zealand on the world stage,
and I'm sure you have a lot of questions,
so we will just crack straight into it. Debra.
- Good morning, Minister.
Is there any truth to the claims that New Zealand
was involved in the recent botched UN mission
that destroyed a Syrian power station?
- Absolutely not, we wouldn't have gone anywhere near that.
Okay, Ian?
- Good morning, Minister.
Did New Zealand have anything to do with the takeover of the
ISIL stronghold on Deir ez-Zor?
- Yeah, so that was us. We have actually been
positively capturing a lot of strongholds lately,
from your mild strongs to your kiwi hot. (laughs)
- In light of recent revelations, have there
been any changes to the New Zealand Food Aid
program in North Korea?
- Yes, Yup, it's, well, yes of course, it has...
increased?
- Even though the food's being
diverted to the military leaders?
- Here we go, what I was trying to say,
Claire, is what we've done is actually increased
our food by positively decreasing
what we send into North Korea.
- What about the increase in
World Bank loans to the Ukraine?
- Yes, that was us! That was absolutely,
positively us, thank you, Ian.
- You know, that's not a good thing,
that money is going to the Minister so
that they can build mansions.
- Okay, well that probably helped the
local construction industry, I mean more jobs for them.
- Sorry, no, the contractors were actually Kiwi.
Yeah, there's a recording of them making the deal.
We all listened to it before we came here today.
- All of you?
(crowd agrees)
- There's like a remix of it,
that's how popular it is.
- Okay, and that recording is a audio, or visual?
- Just audio.
- Oh see, there you go!
It's probably just Australians just trying
to be Kiwis, our accents are very close.
Look at this, here's me talking like this,
and here's me talking like an Aussie.
So.
- What about the bomb strike on the school?
- What? Wow, no. How dare you!
- Well it was holidays so, the only people
harmed were the rebels who were hiding inside.
- Good rebels, bad rebels?
- I suppose broadly considered bad?
- Well then it's fine! Yes we were part of it!
Guys, what I want you to do, is ask
me the full question okay? Don't leave
out any bits so that I know how
to answer properly straight away. Mkay?
- Minister, if I could just...
- No! Not you! Absolutely not, look away, look down!
You know what guys, actually, time out.
(sighs) What's going on? This is New Zealand.
This is a great place to live, we are the good guys!
Yeah, We've got Jacinda, Che Fu, Valerie Adams.
Yeah.
Grass, rugby, Shortland Street, Country Calender,
Tux, keeps em full of life, Lotto, Tip Top,
lick the cone it's dripping, barbies, dolls and BBQs
- There, um...
- Yes? You want to add something?
- Sunscreen.
- Thank you, does anyone else wanna say one?
Do you have one?
- Sorry, I wasn't listening.
- Okay, I'll spell it out for you guys.
We are the good guys, if it was a good
thing that happened then yes, we were a part of it.
Negative story happens, mmnnn I can't even see it,
I'm blind to it, here's a negative story, don't look!
We're not in it!
Alright, now, I have to go and sign heaps
of papers with some Russians,
so I'll see you later.
- Russians.
(crowd talks amongst themselves)
- Actually, sorry, where are we at with the Russians?
(crowd talks amongst themselves)
- The world's not going great right now.
Climate change is on the way in,
democracy's on the way out,
and there's nothing you can do about it, right?
Wrong, you're part of a country, and for
better or worse, that country is New Zealand,
so it's time to figure out how to use that country
to make the world a better place,
and we don't have much time,
so play the intro!
♪ The Citizen's Handbook ♪
♪ Hmmmmm ♪
- How does New Zealand interact with the rest of the world?
We know that other countries laugh
at our silly accent, but do they actually hate us?
Or are they just doing it as friends?
Well, to understand why our foreign
affairs work the way they do, let's do
a whistle stop tour of New Zealand's history
of interacting with the rest of the world.
Before Aotearoa was colonized by the British,
it was run by a collection of independent iwi,
they traded and convened, and had little battles
all over Te Ika-A-Māui and Te Waipounamu.
When they got big European style ships
they formed the United Tribes of New Zealand
and picked out a flag, and extended their
trade empire out to Australia.
- G-day mate!
- And when the Brits started outstaying their
welcome, iwi's sent envoys over to London
to try and get some sense out of
the king and queen themselves,
but once we got sucked into the Commonwealth
New Zealand's foreign policy was
officially run by the British,
because who better to make big
policy decisions for us than a country
on the literal opposite side of the planet.
Then Britain dragged us into the First World War,
and even immigrants fresh off the boat from the UK
started to think that the British might not have
New Zealand's best interests at heart,
partly because of Gallipoli and the whole
sending thousands of people off
to die for no clear reason thing.
From that point on, New Zealand started
to think that maybe running our own
international relations would help
keep more New Zealanders alive, and by 1943
we had our very own Department of External Affairs,
meanwhile New Zealand had been doing
some colonizing of it's own, because
just because you're cute and little,
doesn't mean you can't be evil.
After the First World War, we occupied
Western Samoa, and imposed our own laws.
Arresting people who didn't like the laws,
and opening fire on Samoans peacefully
demonstrating for their own independence.
During the influenza pandemic of 1918,
New Zealand administrators also failed
to quarantine an infected ship.
Killing eight and a half thousand Samoans as a result.
Which was more than a fifth of the population at the time.
And it wasn't just Samoa, we also colonized
the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau,
so people who live there now are
New Zealand citizens, and we run their foreign policy.
Just like the British did for us,
because that worked so well.
By 1951, we'd joined a security treaty
with Australia and the United States
called the Australia New Zealand
United States Security Treaty, because
names are difficult, and by 1986
America had kicked us out again,
because we told them to park their nuclear ships
somewhere else thank you very much.
And that brings us to today.
So let's check in
on our international relationships.
Well we still have an extremely close
relationship with Australia, because
they're just over there.
According to the Australian constitution,
we can become part of Australia whenever we want.
No one has yet come up with a good reason
for ever doing that, but the offer's on
the table if we get desperate.
We're also still part of the Commonwealth,
which is made up of all the countries
Britain colonized who still want to be
associated with Britain for some reason.
The Commonwealth includes Australia,
South Africa, India, and 49 other countries
who aren't as good at cricket.
The Commonwealth doesn't have much actual power,
but it's nice to be in a group.
It means you can do symbolic things
to try and improve the world,
like kicking countries out if
they abuse too many human rights, Zimbabwe.
It also means we can take part in a
much easier version of the Olympics.
We also have a special relationship with the UK,
the US, Canada and Australia.
All our spies share their spy secrets with
each other in a great big group chat called the Five Eyes.
Another group we're in is bloody massive,
and it's called the United Nations, or U-N or un.
The United Nations exists because some issues,
like climate change, require as many countries
as possible to sit around the table
and figure out what to do.
There are 193 countries who are part of the UN,
so it's got some power, but it
doesn't do as much as it could.
Mostly because there are five countries
France, China, the UK, Russia, and the US
who are allowed to veto whatever substantial
resolution they want, even if the
other 188 countries reckon it's a brilliant idea.
Our main strategists when it comes to
international relations are the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade, or MFAT,
who have ambassadors posted in embassies all over the place.
Those embassies are filled with
busy little diplomats, running around
trying to understand what's going on
in their host countries, sharing New Zealand's
hot takes on whatever's going down,
and trying to convince them that
New Zealand is awesome, and they
should do everything we want them to do.
MFAT also sends out a little bit of
money to other nations, half of which
we send to Polynesia, which is the least we could do.
We welcome not that many immigrants and refugees
compared to other countries, and we've got
a military we send out every so often.
And lastly we've also got some free trade agreements,
to make sure people keep buying our pineapple lumps.
It's hard work trying to stay friends with
so many people, but it's more important then ever.
Humanity is about to face catastrophic
weather events, food shortages, disease, war,
and refugee crises because of climate change,
and people in Western society have less
faith in their institutions then ever before.
Uh oh, so we've gotta make some big decisions.
Should we distance ourselves from
America, and cozy up to China?
Or can we somehow be friends with both?
Do we need to set a better example
if we're trying to get other countries
to cut their carbon emissions?
Which country has the coolest flag?
And when we make those decisions,
we have to think about how we're making them.
Are the systems imposed by powerful people
with guns from the past, our systems of
politics and justice and economics,
are they how we want to move forward?
Do they make New Zealand a better community?
Or the world a better place,
or are we just doing them because
we've been doing them for awhile?
I dunno, but the stakes are high, and they're global.
Being a citizen comes with some good perks,
but it's a tough gig.
We've explained as much as we can.
It's up to you to take it from here.
So, citizen, whoever you are, and
whatever you believe, good luck!
♪ The Citizen's Handbook ♪
♪ Hmmmmmm ♪