GUEST EDITORIAL
By Trevor Ammundsen.
Australian Thefts and Nonsense – The Truth
I have a policy of not becoming to upset by what others write in the Informer but the Stan’s Stuff article in the Informer of 11 April, being saturated in Australian dribble as it was, cannot go unanswered.
While Stan does admit Phar Lap was a New Zealand horse, a rare bit of honesty in his article, his claim that it is in fact Australian cannot be substantiated. The horse was bred in Timaru and was purchased by an American Businessman, David Davis, who paid in today’s terms about $400 for the horse. Obviously not a big spender; Mr Davis sent the horse to Australia where there was a better chance of making a dollar due to the lower quality of opposition at the time. The rest is history; Phar Lap is recognised universally, other than in Australia, as New Zealand’s greatest racehorse that won a lot of races in other countries, including Australia.
The claims made by Stan regarding Pavlova indicate some problems he has as a researcher. It is true that an Australian Chef named Herbert Sachse cooked a Pavlova in Melbourne in 1935 but did he invent the dish? Obviously not, he used a recipe printed in New Zealand in 1927 in a book called Davis Dainty Dishes. Australians were a decade behind, but then we have become used to seeing them in the rear vision mirror.
The rather silly claims about Australian Rules Football have been made before as Australians desperately seek recognition in the World. Our neighbours constantly seek success; mainly in the sporting world as even they realise the intellectual world is beyond them. With Australian Rules Football they have found consistent success, as by playing a game that nobody else plays, they can claim to have been World Champions for ever.
We shouldn’t be too surprised, or upset, by such claims; more we should feel sympathy for the constant disappointment they feel on the other side of the Tasman. This disappointment is manifested in their desire to steal our stuff and better themselves. The attempt to claim New Zealand musicians is legendary, the list being far too long to print in this article. The claiming of sporting victories through dubious tactics and dishonest refereeing is an ongoing source of shame for those few fair-minded people over there.
New Zealand has a population that is roughly the size of Sydney but performs very well despite this size differential. A good example of the difference is the Americas Cup where a comparison shows that Australia won the cup in 1983 which is to be commended. They did nothing with the boat design and lost the cup in their only defence in 1987. They were next seen sinking their yacht in San Diego, which caused Lion Breweries to comment that their products were the only thing to go down faster than an Aussie Yacht. They have not competed since. No technology, no innovation, no stickability.
New Zealand on the other hand won the Americas Cup in 1995 and set about initiating some rules and advances in boat design. They successfully defended the Cup, becoming the first non-American country to do so. Losing in the next challenge; did we give up? No, being of a different blood line to Australians, we picked ourselves up and kept competing winning the trophy back in Bermuda. We then invented the foiling monohull and successfully retained the Cup in 2021. And of course, let us not forget the successful challenge made by the Mercury Bay Yacht Club in 1988, we did briefly get our name on the trophy with the J Class Challenge. We can be content in our blissful islands; that we are honest, innovative, intelligent and competitive people. Over the Tasman they are envious and constantly seeking to steal our stuff. Aussies! No surprises there mate.