If you wanna get technical, not a single human is native to Australia. We all get traced back to sub-Saharan Africa. All the whites could be classified as invasive species, too.

Kudos to him for maintaining his cool.

But I don't believe in responding to bigotry with tolerance. Integrity, yes, but there's no way I would have put up with that bullshit.

I lived in Australia for a few years and while most of the people there were lovely, I did have quite a few encounters with racist arseholes who would either tell me they were happy to see Irish immigrants ("not like those OTHER PEOPLE") or people whose racism extended to me as well.

Both groups were told to get fucked in no uncertain terms.

Q: What's the "Australian way of life" to you?
A: Well, it's certainly not people your age skating up and down the footpath.

That's a WTF worthy non-sequitur right there. Is she implying that only dirty furriner kids would skate on footpaths? [insert JackieChanWhatIdonteven.gif]

I agree, kudos to the young man for taking it in stride.

Are you sure about that?
I thought I saw a program about studying the migration of humans through DNA studies that said aboriginal people in Australia both came from a separate group of humans that left Africa earlier than the main migration, and also had evolved into a separate sub species after arriving, meaning that, as they exist today, they are native and also distinct genetically from any other group of humans....lucky them.

I guess it would be a rude awakening for her to realize that nobody in the rest of the world can tell the difference between the Australian and New Zealand ways of life.

Wait... so Australian's have a big problem with people from New Zealand?...

I was a little confused by this? Is this just her unique bigotry or is this a semi-common theme?

I sort of assumed she meant anyone not white.

In general, there's a pretty friendly rivalry between the two countries, mostly around sport (we beat them at rugby, they beat us at cricket).

But the countries are actually politically and culturally pretty close, and there's a real sense of comradeship in relation to shared military history (see ANZACs).

All that said, there are some genuine issues of contention, especially right now. The two countries both allow citizens of the other to live and work there. Given that Australia is the larger economy, this mostly means kiwis going to Aussie looking for work.

So there is a perception among some Australians that Kiwis are somehow both stealing their jobs and also lazy dole bludgers (hey, no one said bigots had to be internally consistent).

In fact, this is completely the opposite of reality. Australians who come to NZ are basically NZ citizens in all but name. They are entitled to unemplyoment benefit, whereas Kiwis in Australia do not have the same benefits.

There is also currently an issue around detention and deportation of Kiwis, where Kiwis in Australia (many of whom have lived most of their lives in Australia) who have been committed of crimes are being deported back to NZ after completing their sentences. This often means they are held in refugee-style detention centres while awaiting deportation and are being sent back to a country away from their families.

In this specific instance, I'm guessing it's because the kid in the video is of Maori or Polynesian descent.

Disclaimer: I'm an Irish guy living in NZ who spent two years in Sydney, so this is a slightly outsider take.

Thanks for the perspective darlin'... appreciate it.

No problem, ma'am.

/tips hat...