Dialogue: How dare they mess with our OE

By DIANA WICHTEL

Something made me suspect, early on, that I had republican inclinations. Perhaps it was the vicious pokes I got from the umbrellas of apoplectic old ladies when, in my rebellious student phase, I refused to stand for God Save the Queen at the movies.

By the time the heir to the throne declared his desire to be a tampon, I was sure. They really would have to go.

So I was surprised to find how betrayed I felt at the news that the Brits are planning to cut the traditional working holiday visa for 17 to 27-year-olds - an integral ingredient in the great Kiwi OE - from two years to one. What? Does our nation's sterling record of watching Coronation Street and EastEnders count for nothing?

Some may say we don't need any favours from Britain when it's only a matter of time before we shake off a monarchy clearly in decline, even at home. Only 34 per cent of Britons polled recently expect The Firm to last another 100 years.

There's apparently embarrassingly little sign of enthusiasm among her subjects for the Queen's 50th jubilee, despite Her Majesty's PR machine churning out such stirring statistics as the fact that the Queen has owned more than 30 corgis during her reign.

Prince William could be an asset but he's keeping a low, if devilishly handsome, profile. It doesn't help that Prince Harry has been running amok, hanging out with a bunch of bad eggs traumatised by an upbringing of wealth and privilege. I mean, if even the young Windsors can't be bothered with the monarchy's petrified formalities, why should we?

Nevertheless, the Big OE is one of our few traditions. Even if my own wasn't up to much. The obligatory trip round the continent in the customised sardine can that was the VW Combi turned into a grand, if desperate, search for the ladies' loos of Europe. They were hard to find and when you did you often wished you hadn't.

Working for peanuts in London as a temp telephonist meant lurching from being patronised by West End lawyers to being threatened with death by disgruntled clients at Westminster Social Services.

Still, I came home with a new respect for sunshine, the (relatively) classless society and New World plumbing. I also learned that OE was never so much about going Home as about escaping from its seductive comforts to experience a real, harsher world.

Whether or not we maintain our constitutional links with Britain, that pilgrimage is part of our heritage. Robin Hyde's 1938 autobiographical novel The Godwits Fly drips with colonial ambivalence. Admittedly, Hyde committed suicide in London. But going to England probably helped to save Janet Frame's life. Katherine Mansfield never came back but her exile produced short stories, such as Prelude and At the Bay, luminous with love and longing.

The tradition still serves a useful purpose. It's not a bad idea to export our youth at their most munterish, so they get all that binge-drinking, head-banging and so on - I don't even like to think about the "and so on" - out of their systems elsewhere. The nitwits fly; the British send theirs to Ibiza.

Britain, for its part, gets good, keen, cheap labour. I saw my son off on his OE the other day and was not the only mother boo-hooing on the neck of long-suffering offspring bound for London. He's scored his first bit of work, doing what he loves. Goodness knows when we'll see him again. On the bright side, he's meeting half his mates over there. When you think how many internationally laughable New Zealand pesos it has taken them to cut the Antipodean umbilical chord, a year isn't enough.

When the blow comes, it may be softened, British officials have hinted, by easing visa work restrictions. Today it is not permitted to work in one's chosen profession, which seems a little silly. What if your chosen profession is pulling pints? Are you required to apply for jobs as a rocket scientist?

Anyway, that rule seems to be fairly comprehensively ignored. The advice at website www.kiwiinlondon.com doesn't exactly encourage people to lie their heads off on arrival, but it's full of useful tips on getting around the rules.

On work: Let them know that if you are likely to work, it will be in a pub or something casual; once you are through Customs you can do what you want. If you must bring tell-tale suits, the site advises, hide them under your board shorts.

In other words, act dumb and dress badly. It's a funny old system, but it's all we've got and it shouldn't be given up without a fight. Helen needs to talk to Tony. Well, it might work. I know she scares me.

As my personal contribution I'd even be willing to hang onto the Queen for a while if it helps keep the world accessible to our young. Her family have a certain entertainment value and she has inspired a lot of devotion over the years. Thirty corgis can't be wrong.