Over the last couple of days - since Anzac Day really, I've been thinking about what I'll miss about New Zealand when we move to Brisbane. In many respects while we were visiting a couple of weeks back I was struck by the similarities rather than the differences. Yes there were all those Australian accents, and my wallet kept getting weighed down by all that heavy coinage - but it all seemed pretty manageable. I've moved regions in New Zealand before and I was beginning to think it wasn't going to be much more of an adaptation than that.
Then on Anzac Day during the Dawn Parade when the Army speaker started his address in Te Reo Maori, I began to think of the day to day inclusions that I take for granted. Hearing and using Te Reo (however infrequently and badly) is one of them, and that God Defend New Zealand is the New Zealand national anthem. That I could as easily have been at a war memorial on Sunday which carried the name of one of my great, great uncles.
I know that the importance I place on cultural inclusion and the awareness of cultural equity is not universal in this country, but as I watched the boys leaving the college Jon would have gone to while I stopped at the crossing' I was struck by their incredible diversity of skin colours and ethnicity as they (at least in that moment) were laughing and joking together at the end of the day. And it troubles me that not one of the schools we could enrol him in, in Brisbane, had an indigineous role percentage of more than 4%.
And what worries me more - and why I am writing about it to remind me - is that after a few months I wont even notice the absence.
