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Why NZers and Australians could be forgiven for feeling invisible to the rest of the world

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As the Oscar Wilde quote goes, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

To feel invisible sets you up for all kinds of insecure.

Yet invisible is exactly how Kiwis and Aussies could be feeling right now: At a Flat Earthers conference held in April in Birmingham, the UK, the theory was aired that Australia doesn’t exist. And this week a tongue-in-cheek Tourism NZ video has emerged, see above, in which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Kiwi comedian Rhys Darby star, alerting us to the fact that New Zealand is being left off world maps.

Yes, that’s right, completely left off – like we don’t exist either.

Firstly, Australia: As reported in the NZ Herald, more than 200 people attended a Flat Earthers conference in Birmingham, UK, in April and of the theories to come out of it, one was that the entire country of Australia is a hoax.

We can safely assume that none of the conference organisers or attendees were from Australia.

In the below Facebook post shared by a Flat Earther, that has since been deleted but was screenshot and is doing the rounds on the internet, its author claims “Australia is not real. It’s a hoax, made for us to believe that Britain moved over their criminals to someplace.”

As the daughter of an Australian, does this then mean that my dad’s home country which he showed me with pride was actually a country of another name? Or, if we’re going to be really spooky, that my late Australian father never existed because Australia has never existed? That I was never conceived? Am I actually even real?

In the meantime, here in New Zealand the afore-mentioned video has been posted on Facebook by Rhys Darby with the words, “Fellow humans, there’s a big conspiracy going down! We need to prove that New Zealand is missing from world maps so I can update New Zealand’s fearless leader @jacindaardern,” he wrote.

He urges fellow humans to “Help us #getNZonthemap”.

The video shows Darby getting a tip-off about NZ not being on a world map. He calls PM Jacinda Ardern to alert her and then goes about investigating how serious the problem is.

As the video reveals, New Zealand is absent on quite a few world maps around the globe, including in the board game Risk. Starbucks, Ikea, The British Museum in London, New York’s Central Park Zoo are also among those shamed.

Kiwis can report maps that have forgotten about us on the website, worldmapswithout.nz.

Clearly there is work to be done – and there is no time to be wasted, fellow Antipodeans.

Let us be invisible no more.

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