If I was anyone other than a New Zealander, I would say bah humbug. Because I am a New Zealander I will simply say bah.
What am I bleating about?
Its you thieving Aussies; you steal everything worthwhile thats ever come out of New Zealand: Phar Lap, Split Enz, Russell Crowe, Ugg boots and . . . Willie Mason (oh, so you want a refund on Willie now do you  sorry!).
But all of that thieving combined comes nowhere near the enormity of this latest reputation heist: sheep rooters.
How dare you.
Is nothing sacred?
As a Kiwi whose first real girlfriend was called Baabara, I take the greatest exception to you people usurping us in the sheep rooting stakes.
You haven't done yourselves any favours by assuming the mantle, you know. Australia will fall seriously silent without sheep-and-New Zealanders jokes; there'll be no other jokes to tell. Laughter will die. I know this because I have lived in New Zealand where there are no sheep jokes  and no laughter.
You do understand the long term implications of this, to use a rugby league expression, turnabout?
Absolutely: New Zealanders will start laughing cruelly at you from the other side of the ditch. They'll be telling Aussies-and-sheep jokes in the blink of an eye: 
Hey, did you know the Aussies have found two new uses for sheep: yep, meat and wool.
Look, put yourselves in our shoes. In 1976 we won many more gold medals than Australia at the Olympics, 16 in all. We ritualistically thrashed Australia at the rugby. Now look at us: the last gold medal went to a bloke who competed sitting down and rated rubbish in the world rugby rankings.
It may not have been much but at least we were still champion sheep rooters.
No doubt the cowardly, despicable theft was done in the dead of night; no-one had even noticed it . . . until that Saturday night in South Africa at the Waratahs-Bulls rugby match. Trust those infinitely hilarious South Africans: parading a stuffed sheep with a carrot up its rear and letting loose a boerish ground barker to announce to the world that Australians, but specifically the Waratahs (now the Warabahs), had lifted the sheep rooters title from us wretched Kiwis.
Mind, I am suspect it has come as something of a shock to many Australians to learn they have picked up the baton. Trouble is, you're stuck with it now, the same as being stuck with cane toads and red-eared sliders.

From bitter personal experience at being on the wrong end of all those sheep jokes for year and years, I can say it is going to take some getting used to.
How do you pick an Aussie male in a shoe shop? They're the ones standing grinning next to the Ugg boots.
Like it?
Neither did I.
On the other hand, it will help enormously in finally understanding what Waltzing Matilda is really all about. Until now, we thought that the jolly jumbuck had nicked the sheep in order to eat it. Not true. Think about it: why was the jumbuck jolly? That's right, the jumbuck was jolly because the ewe had just given consent (relax, she had reached the age of hogget) and the jumbuck was wildly, madly in love with her. Sadly, at the magic moment, the three killjolly troopers hauled up out of nowhere and sprung the by then very, very jolly jumbuck. No wonder he leapt into the billabong and drowned himself; his mum and dad would have been disgusted.
Its now clear Australia has been a sheep rooting country for a lot longer than most Australian would care to admit to. We New Zealanders were taught that Australia the 50s and 60s rode on the sheeps back in terms of its economy -- but now we know what it really meant, you dirty, hypocritical buggers.
Talk about chickens coming home to roost, or should that be sheep coming home to root?

Submitted by El Jay

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