Australia embarrassed by NZ success

I'm a dual citizen of both New Zealand and Australia, so I can get a bit confused sometimes. Both countries have a long history of friendly rivalry. However when New Zealand beats Australia at something (generally the Rugby Union) I always support New Zealand. I was born and grew up there, and those years will always be a part of me.

So in this latest NZ success, getting marriage equality before Australia I suspect will be the subject of some gloating on my part. Like, Ha! We won! All good natured of course....

It does seem though that the implications of the NZ marriage equality go beyond a bit of Kiwi gloating. Quite apart from the fact that the Australian Marriage Equality people find themselves "deeply embarrassed" by the Kiwi success, it appears that that success will also have financial effects on Australia as gay people fly across the Tasman and get married in New Zealand.

AME blamed Australia's political leaders for failing to support gay marriage and said the effect of New Zealand passing legislation first will mean that 'the world's attention will be on New Zealand's achievement, and Australia's corresponding failure'. 

The Australian campaign group also ran a survey to see how many Australian same-sex couples were planning to go to New Zealand to marry and found that 1,000 couples said they would. 

'Australia will lose a proportion of the estimated $700 million same-sex couples plan to spend on their weddings, as these couples spend their money in New Zealand instead,' said a statement from AME. more

To be honest, I've been losing interest in Australia's political leadership. They're so far out of kilter from being representative of our views on marriage equality, amongst other things. I'm starting to think the whole two party system here is the cause of this, maybe I'm wrong. New Zealand has proportional representation unlike Australia, and it's certainly served them well as far as this goes.