Most New Zealanders feel some sense of warmth toward our transtasman neighbours, even if higher-qualified New Zealanders now tend to head off to Western Europe and North America as areas of prospective employment. LGBT New Zealanders and other social liberals feel deeply uncomfortable with the behaviour of our cousins across the ditch over the last decade. We shake our heads at draconian imprisonment and infringement of the basic human rights and civil liberties of refugees and asylum seekers, and LGBT New Zealanders have a strong incentive to stay here, given the Howard administration's backwardness related to federal recognition of same-sex marriages and civil unions alike. Even more so, we follow decidedly different counsels when it comes to New Zealand's nuclear-free and independent foreign policy, compared to Howard's servile attitude toward the Bush administration. Clearly, Howard's conservative Liberal/National Coalition does imitate the US Republican Party when it comes to social, cultural and economic policies, as does our own beloved National Party. However, in some cases it has gone further. The United States lifted its ban on RU486 for non-surgical abortions, whereas Australia retained it until last year- four years after New Zealand introduced it as an option for pregnancy termination here. Despite its best efforts, the US Supreme Court and Republican Congress were unable to overturn Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law and procedures, whereas the Howard administration quickly moved to ban voluntary euthanasia when it was briefly legalised in the Northern Territory (1996-7). And then there's Australia's same-sex marriage ban, whereas the former United States Republican federal Congress and its Christian Right have been unable to pass a corresponding federal marriage amendment. Given the Republican midterm election rout, which delivered both federal Congressional houses to the Democrats, that might start to change now. For example, the Commonwealth Parliament recently liberalised Australian stem cell research legislation on therapeutic cloning, for example. Without a social conservative template, Howard and Stephen Harper head the only two centre-right social conservative governments in the western world. Germany's Angela Merkel is a social liberal, and France's Chirac is a voice of reason when it comes to fighting the French National Front. While Altman is correct to point out the existence of Australia's tradition of robust civil liberties, human rights and social democracy and environmental politics, I think he overstates his case somewhat. Erik Paul and Andrew McGahan are somewhat more sceptical when it comes to the above, suggesting that Australia also lacks a robust constitution, and that the Australian Labor Party's factional structure is prolonging the misery of Howard's federal regime. Social diversity, human rights and civil liberties have been damaged under the Howard regime, and that administration takes George W.Bush's Republicanism as its template. Paul's treatment takes the same premises as Altman, but comes to a different conclusion. MacGahan's case is different. It is a fictional treatment of what might happen to Australia if the current state of things continues into the intermediate future, and Australia continues down its current path of social conservatism, disregard for human rights and civil liberties, and foreign policy dependency. In his bleak intermediate future, Canberra has been destroyed by an apparent terrorist 'dirty nuke,' although it was evacuated beforehand, given advance warning, and Australian Muslims are imprisoned in 'detention camps.' Encouragingly, though, New Zealand boycotts their cricket team due to the above. If one recalls C.K.Stead's dystopian Muldoon parable, Smith's Dream (1976), one is in similar territory here. Our nearest neighbour is increasingly diverging from us over issues of foreign, cultural and social policies. One hopes that sanity eventually prevails, and that New Zealand's National Party doesn't decide to continue to slavishly imitate the Australian Liberals, or else our own more resilient culture of pluralism, social justice, human rights, civil liberties and respect for indigenous rights may be similarly impaired. One awaits fallout from the US Republican rout with interest. Dennis Altman: 51st State? Melbourne: Scribe: 2006. ALSO: Erik Paul: Little Australia: Australia- the 51st State: Sydney: Pluto Press: 2006. Andrew McGahan: Underground: Sydney: Allen and Unwin: 2006. Craig Young - 16th November 2006