For New Zealand, from across the Tasman.

This week as most of you must already know, saw the deadliest terrorist act in New Zealand's history: a massacre in a Christchurch mosque, with 50 casualties and counting. One of the four perpetrators has been identified as Brendan Tarrant, who I'm deeply ashamed to say is actually Australian. I think there can be no doubt this was politically motivated terrorism given its location, although a general shooting massacre would've been little if any better. Its figures have now put it arguably on the same scale as too many US gun massacres, and it could prove to be the event that defines Jacinda Ardern's prime ministership for better or worse. But before it comes to define New Zealand's recent history for most non-Kiwis, let me as an Aussie list some more pleasant achievements by modern New Zealanders:

- New Zealand was the first country on Earth to give women the vote.

- It's now the first to have had three elected female heads of state.- The Maori were one of the few indigenous cultures to successfully resist English colonisation.- New Zealander Edmund Hillary led the first successful expedition to climb Mount Everest.- New Zealander Peter Jackson, who was rejected from a film school, is the only Best Director Academy Award winner from the southern hemisphere, and he achieved that for part of a trilogy that grossed over $3 billion.- Another NZ filmmaker, Jane Campion, was just the second woman to be nominated for that award.- NZ soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sang to an audience of over 600 million at the wedding of Charles and Diana in 1981.- (Naturalised) Kiwi Shelia Laxon was the first woman to train a Melbourne Cup-winning horse.- NZ physicist Ernest Rutherford, the namesake of the element Rutherfordium, became known as the father of nuclear physics.

To name just a few.

Now I know I'm just one man, and an Australian, but I vow I will do my bit from over here to always keep the Anzac spirit of mutual solidarity and goodwill alive. I apologise on my country's behalf for Tannant's acts, and my heart absolutely goes out to the casualties and their loved ones. After all, we are all Antipodeans.