NEW ZEALAND’S BLEAK “IMAGE” IN AUSTRALIA

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31782, 12 September 1968, Page 10

NEW ZEALAND’S BLEAK “IMAGE” IN AUSTRALIA

(By DAVID BARBER, N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent) SYDNEY, September 10. New Zealand’s already bleak national image in Australia has been scarred beyond recognition by ill-informed Australian impressions of the nation’s plight after its recent economic crisis.

The poor New Zealand image in Australia has long been a source of despair and annoyance to New Zealand exiles and visitors alike, but for the first time there are indications that it is actually damaging the country.

There are signs that the steady growth of Australian tourist travel to New Zealand, which has been rising by about 20 per cent each year, is being checked. The tourist industry has worked hard at promoting New Zealand as a desirable holiday centre, and officials are gravely concerned at the trend, which they put down to New Zealand’s worsening image in the eyes of Australians.

“The evidence is already there that our bleak national image is starting to harm the tourist industry,” said one prominent travel man. “If the writing is not on the wall, the red warning light is flashing."

The number of tourists to New Zealand from Australia are still expected to be up this year, but the rise will be nowhere near the average growth rate of the 19605. Travel experts deny that New Zealand may have reached saturation point in its attack on the Australian tourist market or that there is a price barrier; and all discussions come back to the question of image. Talks Held While some New Zealand Government officials refuse to accept—at least publicly—that the Dominion presents a poor face in this country, it is significant that tourist interests in Sydney recently called a special meeting to discuss the “image” question. Air New Zealand represen-

tatives, New Zealand Government tourist and trade officials, and an executive of a leading advertising agency that handles a number of New Zealand accounts in Australia, have discussed ways and means of “enhancing the New Zealand image.” Talks I have had with Australian and New Zealand Government officials, businessmen, and ordinary Kiwis and Aussies in Canberra and Sydney over the last few weeks made it clear that New Zealand has a serious image problem and that something urgently needs to be done. The Wahine disaster and the West Coast earthquake left big dents in New Zealand’s tourist image, but the recent economic crisis lies at the heart of the worsening problem. “It’s like an insidious worm, eating away all respect for New Zealand in Australia,” said a former Auckland journalist, George Lynch. “We are represented as an under-privileged, half-starved society,” said Mr Duff Raysh, a Wellington businessman. “God only knows what harm it is doing to our business and investment prospects.” Australian newspapers recently unwittingly provided a three-day capsuled course on New Zealand’s image in Australia. “Broke, Bitter” “Right now the Land of the Long White Cloud is broke and the people are bitter. The lush land of New Zealand is going to the dogs,” a masscirculation Sydney Sunday newspaper told its readers.

The next day another bigselling newspaper published a photograph of a model waiting at Sydney airport for a plane to Auckland. ’ “Her thigh-high leather boots are sure to turn the heads of import-starved New Zealanders,” said the caption. And the day after, stories of “starving” New Zealand children rummaging through dustbins for food, and a uni-

versity professor urging students to follow his example and leave the country were widely published. It all reinforced the general impressions most Australians hold about their neighbour across the Tasman. Although Australian Government officials know the New Zealand economy is re. covering and Australian businessmen are developing a healthy respect for their counterparts across the Tasman, the man in the street—when he thinks of New Zealand at all—pictures a beautiful country with the seat hanging out of its pants. While Australians have a vast amount of basic good will towards New Zealand, their attitude is summed up in the oft-heard phrase: “It’s a lovely country, but ...” Tourists Return They have read so many slick, uninformed and inaccurate articles about New Zealand and its economic agonies that they believe the worst. Tourists come back from New Zealand marvelling that they did not see hordes of starving children and lines of unemployed marching in the streets or find evidence of a disgruntled nation on the brink of revolution. “I don’t know how far this is actually affecting us,” says the High Commissioner to Australia, Mr J. L. Hazlett, “but it’s very annoying, and it’s not doing our image any good. “The problem is that we can’t seem to get our message across. The Australian press is not interested in the improvement in our economy,

for instance—that is apparently not news.” New Zealanders regularly complain that Australian newspapers show no interest in New Zealand except when there is a gaol riot, an earthquake or a sea tragedy. They say nothing is published about aspects of life that compare more than favourably with Australia, such as social services, education, roads and town planning. New Zealand has won a deservedly first-class image as a tourist centre against strong competition, but this has been achieved at the expense of every other aspect of national identity. Our overseas publicity is, the argument goes, entirely a matter of mountains and not manufacturers, ferny glade and not trade, head-down relaxation and not tail-up sophistication. "Backward, Dull” Add this to the popular vision of belt-tightening restrictions and semi-bank-ruptcy and the result is a picture of a beautiful but broke country of easy-going farming folk, a lovely place for a relaxing holiday but staid, backward, dull—and steadily going downhill, “Little country, little thinking—that’s our trouble,” says an Auckland businessman, Mr lan O’Hara, now heading Lincoln Industries Australian operations.

“We have a poor image in Australia because we are too wrapped up in our own little world. New Zealanders don’t project themselves, their products or their country. We just don’t make enough effort.”

It all boils down to the fact that something needs to be done and someone needs to make the effort.

The general-manager of the Tourist and Publicity Department, Mr R. S. Austin, confirmed today in Wellington that talks were being held to determine whether New Zealand’s image in Australia needed improving. He said a meeting had been held in Sydney between Air New Zealand and the New Zealand Government travel commissioner on August 20 and a further meeting was scheduled for this week.

The first of three articles on New Zealand’s image in Australia and trans-Tasman relations by the N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent in Sydney, David Barber.