But I can understand - I was watching 'six days seven nights' (or t'other way round?) on the telly recently (Why? I don't know, but it was ok). Anyway, Temuera Morrison (fab NZ actor) was in it for a short time - he didn't have much to say, and I thought at first he was Australian. So, it happens to the best of us :)

The prime difference that we .au dwellers of our friends in .nz is that, per Wades post, the NZ accent tends to 'flatten' the vowel sounds - so nearly every short vowel sound is somewhere between 'uh' and 'eh'. Hence, the stereotyped taunts of 'suxty sux', 'fush and chups' etc heard in the broaded NZ accent.

But yeah, differences between .au and .nz perhaps not as distinctive as those between a Texan and a Noo Yorker, or a resident from Devon and one from Manchester.

Of the accent, that is. If any 'class' was to be derived, that's how it'd be done. Umm... very rough way of working it out - the broader your oz accent, the longer it takes you to say 'yeah'. :-)

But then again, just because you're talking to someone who's wearing stubbies and a singlet, and draws out his 'yairs' to five seconds, doesn't mean they're not a multi-millionaire. there was a quote from someone famous along those lines - something like 'Say you meet an Australian and he's wearing a pair of shorts and a moth-eaten t-shirt, dishevelled and looking like tramp. He may be a tramp. Then again, he may be a multi-millionaire'.

I've not met too many millionaires, but I can vouch for that statement - lack of pretence is a Good Thing.