Australia/New Zealand is the only unambiguous term I can think of. 'Australasia' can sometimes mean Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea, and 'Oceania' is as likely to mean 'all the Pacific and Micronesian Islands except New Zealand' as it is to mean 'Australasia'.
We hear 'Australasia' quite often here, because there are a fair number of official organisations with the name. It's similar in some ways to 'North America = Canada + US' for you, I imagine: separate countries with similar cultures that are in the same area.
The main differences are that our flora and fauna are *really* different, our indigenous peoples had no particular contact before the Europeans showed up and very different post-European-settlement histories, and it takes a three-hour flight to get from New Zealand to Australia (just because they're our closest neighbour, they're really not at all close).
If you're after information about indigenous peoples' situations, though, you might not want to group the two countries together. The Maori *beat* the Europeans in the Land Wars, and the Waitangi Tribunal's been working on sorting out the land thefts for decades. Last time I was in Australia (ten years ago, admittedly) they were trying to decide whether the government should apologise at all for stealing people's kids.
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Date: 16 May 2010 07:26 am (UTC)We hear 'Australasia' quite often here, because there are a fair number of official organisations with the name. It's similar in some ways to 'North America = Canada + US' for you, I imagine: separate countries with similar cultures that are in the same area.
The main differences are that our flora and fauna are *really* different, our indigenous peoples had no particular contact before the Europeans showed up and very different post-European-settlement histories, and it takes a three-hour flight to get from New Zealand to Australia (just because they're our closest neighbour, they're really not at all close).
If you're after information about indigenous peoples' situations, though, you might not want to group the two countries together. The Maori *beat* the Europeans in the Land Wars, and the Waitangi Tribunal's been working on sorting out the land thefts for decades. Last time I was in Australia (ten years ago, admittedly) they were trying to decide whether the government should apologise at all for stealing people's kids.