Neighbours Row On Whereabouts

If a New Zealander is called an Australian, is it a racial insult, ponders The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf. “As an outsider, I won’t pretend a sophisticated understanding of the cultural relationship between Australia and New Zealand, except to say that hearing Aussies and Kiwis muse on it reminds me of how Germans and Austrians or Americans and Canadians speak about their respective neighbours,” Friedersdorf writes. Friedersdorf looks at the recent case study of Czech-born Petra Mills who was charged in court after abusing her New Zealand-born neighbour in Macclesfield, south of Manchester. Chairman of the bench in the local court, Brian Donohue said: “You were in an emotional and inebriated state. The word ‘Australian’ was used. It was racially aggravated and the main reason it was used was in hostility.”