Albanese jokes Australia could ‘take over’ New Zealand

Summarised by Centrist

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has joked that his country could simply “take over New Zealand”, pointing to New Zealand’s unusual place in Australia’s founding document.

“We could take over New Zealand. It’s still in our Constitution. We can just do it. Sorry,” Albanese said, laughing during a July appearance on comedian Nikki Osborne’s Bush Deep podcast.

The takeover remarks were shortened in the podcast’s final edit, according to the Daily Mail, but Osborne later recalled Albanese saying he could take over New Zealand “tomorrow if I wanted”.

“No one cared,” she said, because attention instead centred on Albanese’s comments about Australian singer Kylie Minogue.

There is a sliver of constitutional truth behind the joke. New Zealand is named in covering clause 6 of the Australian Constitution among the colonies that could form part of the Commonwealth.

Australia’s Parliamentary Education Office describes the clause as giving New Zealand the option to join Australia as a state.

New Zealand considered federation but declined to join in 1901. A Royal Commission concluded that the country “should not sacrifice her independence as a separate colony”, according to a New Zealand Parliament research paper.

Albanese therefore cannot simply “take over” New Zealand. The Constitution preserves an invitation for New Zealand to join Australia, not a power for Canberra to annex it.

Read more at The Daily Mail

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