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Quarterly Essay 80: The High Road
- What Australia Can Learn from New Zealand
- By: Laura Tingle
- Narrated by: Aimee Horne
- Length: 4 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
In this wise and illuminating essay, Laura Tingle looks at leadership, economics, history and more. Competitiveness has marked our relationship from its earliest days. In the past half-century, both countries have remade themselves amid shifting economic fortunes. New Zealand has been held up as a model for everything from tax reform to the conduct of politics to the response to COVID-19. Tingle considers everything from Morrison and Ardern as national leaders to the different ways each country has dealt with its colonial legacy.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mispronunciations and name-calling?
- By CS on 03-01-2021
- Quarterly Essay 80: The High Road
- What Australia Can Learn from New Zealand
- By: Laura Tingle
- Narrated by: Aimee Horne
Mispronunciations and name-calling?
Reviewed: 03-01-2021
As a New Zealander, this essay was undermined by the disrespect the author has shown by calling former Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, "Piggy" Muldoon throughout, while abstaining from name-calling with other Australian and NZ leaders. Yes, that was his nickname, but what purpose did it add to the arguments made in the essay? It seemed petty.
It was also very distracting to have to listen to the narrator mispronouncing the name of another former prime minster, David Lange - it is pronounced Long-ee, not Lang. I found myself gritting my teeth every time this happened, which distracted from whatever point the essay was trying to make. The NZ minor party mentioned a few times is incorrectly referred to as the "A-C-T." party - it is actually called the "act" party,
In a book about politics, the narrator should check that she is pronouncing things correctly. I assume the author must not have listened to the narration at all - I'm sure she would be horrified by these mistakes.
As for the final chapters on Jacinda Ardern, the author completely overlooked the fact that until the covid crisis emerged, Labour had been trailing massively in the polls, Labour's policies were failing all around them, and it was quite possible that they would have been defeated in the 2020 election. I wish this had been more balanced.
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