In a pre-ANZAC Day spirit of mateship, the Australian government announced it will make it easier for Kiwis in Australia to attain citizenship. This looks like a concession by the Australian government to New Zealand, but which side actually wins here?
Notwithstanding a few undesirables, Australia is the net beneficiary of cross-Tasman migration, in economic terms, as it attracts higher-earning Kiwis on average. Even more skilled New Zealanders will now be tempted by Australian employers, as the pathway to citizenship will make the move more attractive.
Australia will be the winner, and so will the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
After 3 continuous years, a New Zealander abroad loses the right to vote in NZ. As the pathway to citizenship means that many New Zealanders living in Australia will gain the right to vote there, they’ll be more likely to vote for the ALP. It was Howard’s Liberal-National Coalition government that reneged on cross-Tasman reciprocity in 2001, and now it’s Albanese’s Labor government that’s restoring social rights and re-enfranchising many thousands of ‘Kiwis in Oz’.
The ALP just won a whole lot of votes. This could flip marginal electorates in Queensland in particular.
Now for some ANZAC history.
On 25 April 1915, the Ottoman Empire was facing a threat to its very existence. It had been invaded from the south in Mesopotamia, from the east by Russian forces in the the Caucasus, and then by Allied landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
This crisis set in train the annihilation of Armenian and Assyrian Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire, as it was feared that these minority peoples had divided loyalties and were colluding with the Russians in particular. Armenians and Assyrians were rounded up, driven out of their homes and forced to march through deserts. Their death toll isn’t accurately known, but estimates range up towards one million – some go higher.
The Allied command isn’t to blame for this mass murder, but these events are inextricably linked to the invasion at Gallipoli. The main objective of the Allies in early 1915 was to open up the narrow straits (the Dardanelles and Bosporus) between the Mediterranean and Black Seas and to advance on Constantinople/Istanbul. One immediate need was to release grain supplies from the Black Sea ports into the world market. (Sound familiar?)
The Dardanelles were well defended with artillery and mines. British and French naval vessels had been crippled or sunk in their efforts to break through, and so the Allies’ next plan was to silence the Turkish guns with “boots on the ground”. It was a poorly planned and executed landing, however, and the whole Gallipoli campaign was a failure.
2,779 New Zealanders were killed and 5,212 wounded in that campaign, which was just a small fraction of the total on both sides. There was an unnecessary loss of about 130,000 young lives all told.
Most New Zealanders nowadays probably can’t account for why their soldiers were sent to Gallipoli, to attack the Ottomans, in the first place. While we do at least remember the ANZACs, and sometimes their Turkish and Arab adversaries, we should also remember the much larger losses of Armenian and Assyrian lives, under horrifying circumstances, that were occurring in the Ottoman Empire at that time. Those communities are still seeking international recognition of what happened. US President Joe Biden formally recognised the Armenian genocide in 2021, joining 31 other countries.
While Turkey is recovering from huge losses due to earthquakes, I’ll concede that it’s not the right time to raise the issue officially. This history is not my specialism, so I’ve relied on Eugene Rogan’s The Fall of the Ottomans. You can hear him talking about the Armenian genocide with William Dalrymple and Anita Anand on the podcast at this link.
I can’t resist adding another interesting detail.
In 1917, a British expeditionary force, including New Zealanders, had another go at the Ottoman Empire, this time from Egypt and into Palestine, which led to the occupation of Jerusalem in December that year. The city of Jerusalem surrendered rather than suffer a siege.
I found an interesting quote from NZ’s prime minister at that time, W.F. Massey, reacting to the news of the capture of Jerusalem.
On 11 December 1917, Massey said: “The capture of Jerusalem by the British is one of the great events of the war. May the Holy City now and for always remain under British control, and so be part of a nation whose Sovereign is descended from David’s royal house.”
British control (or Mandate) in Palestine lasted for three decades, not “for always”. But Massey was espousing the idea that the British royal family descended from the biblical King David, who would have reigned in Jerusalem about 3,000 years ago.
Massey was a patron of the British-Israel World Federation, which held, and still holds, this false historical thesis.
There is some slight evidence, outside of the Old Testament, that corroborates the existence of King David. But the origins of the British people and their royals are found elsewhere. (Victoria and Albert, for example, were first cousins who hailed from Germany, and incidentally, were married on 10 February 1840, a few days after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.)
Although Massey, as prime minister during World War I, declared that the occupation of Jerusalem by British forces was “one of the great events of the war”, it was not commemorated by the New Zealand government in the series of official war centennials. The closest we got was one for the battle of Beersheba at the end of October.
Are there reasons for not remembering certain things?