Is New Zealand Better Than Finland?

Gerry Brownlee, the leader of New Zealand's House of Representatives and the centre-right administration's third-ranking minister, caused quite a stir recently when he appeared to insult Finland during a speech.

Such was the uproar, that New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key ended up having to apologise to the Finnish president over the remarks.

It all kicked off when, on March 21^st, Brownlee criticised the opposition's suggested economic policies aimed to make New Zealand “like Finland”. He claimed that the Nordic country had "worse unemployment than us, has less growth than us, can hardly feed the people who live there, has a terrible homicide rate, hardly educates their people and has no respect for women".

The remarks were immediately seized upon by various commentators who pointed out that:

• Finland’s unemployment rate is only slightly higher than New Zealand’s (7.5% vs 6.3%)
• Finland’s growth in recent years has been similar to New Zealand’s (1.8% vs 1.7% between 2004 and 2011) and in fact Finland grew faster grew faster in 2011 (2.9% vs 1.2%),
• While Finland might not be a big agricultural nation, there are no food shortages in Finland
• The intentional homicide rate was 2.0 per 100,000 people in Finland compared to 1.76 in New Zealand, so hardly worse
• Finland leads the world in terms of education, and beats New Zealand in every key PISA scores
• Finland was the first country in the world to grant women both the rights to vote and stand for parliament (1906). New Zealand granted the vote in 1893, but the right to stand for election didn’t come until 1919. Both Finland and New Zealand have had one female head of state and two female prime-minister in recent years, though unlike Finland’s head of state, New Zealand’s was not elected (Queen Elizabeth II)

In other words, Brownlee’s statements were patently either false or disingenuous. However, they did give Finland the chance to set the record straight, and as a result get some good publicity (well, apart from the homicide bit maybe)

Some commentators took it further though, attempting to make a case for Finland being superior to New Zealand, citing for example Finland’s greater GDP per Capita ($44,488 vs. $27,217 in 2011). A mildly amusing effort was put together by Finnish comedian Tuomas Enbuske:

I was a little bemused as to why New Zealand politicians would choose to discuss Finland of all countries. Thinking about it though, it occurred to me that there quite a few similarities between the two countries:

• They are comparatively remote
• They have a similar size (Finland is the 64^th largest country in the world with 338,424 km², New Zealand is 75^th with 268,021 km²)
• They have similar number of people (Finland is the 115^th most populated country in the world with 5.4 million inhabitants, New Zealand is 122^nd with 4.4 million)
• Both countries were part on an empire (Russian for Finland, British for New Zealand)
• Both have annoying neighbours to the West
• The people of both countries are "outdoorsy" and fond of sport (I did notice that Finland trounces New Zealand in terms of medals at the Olympics – 299 including 101 gold between 1896 and 2008, versus 86 and 36 gold)
• Finns and Kiwis are rather fond of alcohol, the former a bit more so than the latter: Finnish adult (15+) per capita consumption was 12.5 litres of pure alcohol on average (2003–2005), versus 9.6 for New Zealanders according to the World Health Organization

Mmmm, looks like I am at risk of proving that Finland is beats New Zealand on every front, including geographic size, population, Olympic success and even alcohol consumption. However, I am neutral in this debate, so just to redress the balance:

• New Zealand has a lot more sheep than Finland (40 million vs 0.1 million)
• New Zealand is much better at rugby (ranked 1^st vs. 96^th and last)
• New Zealand has had bigger earthquakes (largest recorded 8.2 in 1855 vs. 4.7 in 1898)
• New Zealand is generally warmer than Finland (highest temperature 42.4C/108.3F in 1973 vs. 37.2C/99F in 2010)
• New Zealand has more volcanoes (over 60 active, dormant or extinct vs 0 – despite the UK's Daily Express’s 2010 headline "VOLCANO IN FINLAND SPARKS THREAT" or indeed what I claimed in an earlier blog-post)
• New Zealand has the more successful movie director (Peter Jackson grossed $1,3billion vs. a lot less for Aki Kaurismäki)

Anyhow, enough of all this. Both countries are equally lovely and have equally lovely people. Vade in pace.