Other countries don't have our record in being able to do this. Not only that, they value it more highly than the average Kiwi and certainly more highly than the average gallery journalist.
I guess this proves the adage that "familiarity breeds contempt", and in the words of Joni Mitchell "... You don't know what you've got till it's gone".
Ask a Fijian, a northern Irishman or any citizen of eastern Europe about that, and they will reply - like the historian at the Berlin Wall last week - that "democracy and freedom are not self-evident", they need support, monitoring, measurement and accountability to be real. Kiwis might also be more circumspect if they had lost their democracy within living memory.
I have never seen a newspaper article reporting with any degree of pride on the performance of New Zealand constitutionally or diplomatically.
We have spent forever telling ourselves that New Zealand is a pimple of the bottom of the globe and nobody of any substance either knows where we are, what we are about or could give a stuff either way.
Interestingly, after a week in Germany, I didn't meet a single German who had not been to New Zealand or had a child who had not been or a close friend or relative who wasn't about to go or about to come back. They do know who we are and what our brand is. The Polish the same, the Irish and French very similar.
Kiwis like to say we punch above our weight. We tend to quote this with respect to sport and business, but there is loathing reluctance - if, in fact, anybody knows - that we do this best in democracy.
It is the scathing regard for parliamentarians that the gallery media has, and the emphatic egalitarian nature of New Zealanders, that no virtue could ever be found in a politician. But politics and diplomacy are different pockets in the same pair of trousers. So when a minister heads offshore to talk business deals and defence force engagement, justice policy and human rights, they don't do this like a speaker's delegation who cover the same ground but in a different way.
In our discussions on the latest delegation trip, on every occasion in nearly every meeting, we talked free trade, the role of agriculture, education, science and research, and the contributions of New Zealand to gaining stability after the first and second world wars. Their response was: "We are so glad you won."
I write this column heading back to Parliament after representing New Zealand at the Anzac Day service in Berlin.
It was a huge privilege and one of the most memorable speeches I have ever given, and follows similar experiences at the Arc de Triomphe, Caterpillar Valley Soldiers Cemetery, and sharing a blessing and prayers in the camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
But I expect the gallery media will not ask questions about any of that on my way to caucus this morning. In a relationship based on mutual disrespect, such questions are seldom asked. If they were, the answers would not be printed.
