CHAT: Merging contries and dropbears (was: Re: General Question)

andrew wrote:

> Am 03/24 11:09  Tristan McLeay yscrifef:
>
>
>> No such thing as the Australian Federation. After Federation, Australian
>> colonies became the Commonwealth of Australia. But I don't reckon NZ
>> should join the CoA. We should form something different. Hmm... The
>> United States of Earth? But more commonly Earth. Or the United States of
>> Hume, so we were called Humans? (sorry, this is an obvious play on  the
>> USA discussion happening here).
>
>
> Hmmm, Commonwealth of Oceania or the Pacific or something like that.
> The USH would be Hume Island, well it would be if I could find one in my
> atlas, so there goes that joke.
Oh. Evil Humans.

>
> I understand that NZ is listed in the Articles of Federation, but we've
> never taken up the option.
When they were discussing Federation, New Zealand was involved, but they
wanted to be two states, and NSW and Vic wanted them as just one.
Interestingly enough, though, WA made it even harder to be convinced to
join then NZ, and yet the made some rather significant changes to the
original plan for their benifit (for example, thats why each state has
the same amount of senators - the original plan was based on population
like the House of Reps)

>
>> But yes, we should unite, and be a republic, basically replacing the
>> Governor General with the President, and voting should be compulsory.
>
>
> We need to be able to choose our own President and not leave it in the
> hands of the politicians.  While I favour republicanism NZ has the
> problem that our founding document was signed between the representative
> of the crown and the indigenous tribes.  Movement towards republicanism
> would mean the state looses the legitimacy it has from that document and
> it will have to be renegotiated.  That promises to be messy.
Oh... That would also make a merger with Oz difficult. Why should we
choose the President? All they're going to do is be our president. The
system works just fine now without us electing the Queen or GG.

>
>> The most pressing questions are: how are we going to build a city at
>> least 100miles away from Australia (thats why Canberra was born: a city
>> was needed to be built no less than 100 miles away from Sydney to be the
>> capital city), and who/what replaces the Queen on the coins?
>
>
> 100 miles away from Australia?  Now I know one of the biggest problems
> with Oz is that it's above sea level but that's going to extremes!  I
> think we can keep Canberra, but the house there will need extra seats.
Ahh, but will all NZers agree? And anyway, wouldn't they be vehemently
opposed to making one bigger country? It would mean that they would have
even more trouble seperating themselves from us.

>
> I like John's suggestions for animals on the coins, but the wowser coin
> should be two-sided with the larrikin on the opposing side. :)
It'd make it difficult to determine which side was heads and which
tails. We could put the Coat of Arms on the back, and put the wowser on
the 50c coin. But I reckon we need a dropbear* in there somewhere.

*Dropbears, for those unfamiliar, look and - for most of the time -
behave just like koalas. This is to be expected, given that they
evoloved from them. They got sick and tired of being called 'koala
bears', and so decided to change species. When an unsuspecting
(American) tourist walks under a eucalypt that is housing one of these,
the drop down onto their shoulder and start sucking the brains out
through their ears.
Dropbears are NOT MYTHICAL. Last year, a 'koala' dropped on an old woman
as she was walking into her house. She was fortunate enough not to have
been killed by it, but was hospitalised.
Bodies of dropbears' victims are not normally found, presumably because
they are eaten by bunyips.
Sometimes, the people describe dropbears as koala faeces (which are
green). DO NOT LET THIS PEOPLE FOOL YOU. They are only there to lull you
into a false sense of security. Some even cruler Australians may even
tell you the dropbears don't exit. It is these people who also tell you
that our clocks go clockwise (the numbers go clockwise just to fool
American tourists), that we have electricity, and that we don't ride
kangaroos to school/work. These are ALL FALSE (i.e. our clocks go
anti-clockwise, we do not have elctiricty, and kangaroos are our main
form of transport

Tristan


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