Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 00:50:01 +1300
From: Janskrit Virdee <lorax-AT-inet.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Bevare of ambitiouss Ausstrianz




Ben Blumson wrote:

> We have a few of those thingummies down here.  You can have them back if you
> like, although I doubt that you do. :)
> Anyway, then people might start noticing OUR military with its 30 year old
> vehicles and potato guns and laugh at us.
> Lorax
>
> ---- End Original Message ----
>
> didn't you Nzacs get rid of the nuclear powered ships down there?
> cheers,
> Ben
>

Yep, the 1984 Labour government told them to get out and pissed off Uncle $pam something wicked, shortly
before unleashing rabid freemarket zealots Roger Douglas and Richard "Bovver Boy" Prebble upon our
unsuspecting selves, who proceeded to privatize everything in sight.
Yes, you heard it, the Labour party.  When Tony Bleurgh emerged in the UK I knew what to expect because I'd
already seen it.
We also managed to irritate the French so much over Mururoa Atoll nuke testing that a couple of their spooks
blew up a Greenpeace vessel, the Rainbow Warrior, in our first big incident of International Terrorism
(gasp!), in 1985.
Since the super conservative private school National party got into power in 1990 they've been trying to
weasel their way back into favour.
General Commander Pope Emperor President Swell Guy III coming to town for ape-ecch was a major coup for the
tories, but the lamb tariffs they whacked on us really stung them.  Down here, the zealots actually take free
trade seriously and are quite wounded when they drop their tariff trousers as agreed and then nobody else
follows.  They just don't seem to understand.  It's quite sad really.  I can imagine a group of feral, wild
eyed neo-liberal types wandering the ruins after the apocalypse and wailing for The Market to find a solution
to it all.
The Nats don't rule out allowing nuke vessels back at some later point, but they're probably going to be out
of there these elections, and to do so would face enormous opposition, because we really don't like nukes
down here, not even a lot of the crapitalist types.
Lorax