For peace and harmony in your street, you have to have good neighbours. For, as the theme tune to the now-defunct Australian soap tells us: "That’s when good neighbours become good friends." So sweet.
Of course, many of us have had the opposite experience with neighbours. The cars and friends coming in and out all night; loudly barking dogs throughout the day or roosters crowing at dawn; the thumping bass and weekend parties, and empty beer cans thrown over the fence, which make you feel trapped inside your own home and about ready to sell up.
Neither do you want neighbours who watch your every move and have to know everything going on in the street. Nobody wants Hilda Ogden living next door.
Unfortunately, people are so wrapped up in their own lives these days that it often takes a crisis before they get to know their neighbours and community spirit can flourish.
During the Canterbury earthquakes, residents drew closer to one another, with people checking in on their neighbours, especially if they were elderly or vulnerable, after each aftershock.
The Covid-19 pandemic has also fostered a more neighbourly outlook, with others in your street or suburb there to help with providing food and buying shopping during lockdowns or isolation periods.
New Zealand has pretty good neighbours. There’s Australia for a start: For all our niggles and sporting and cultural rivalries, there are very few major issues which cause significant friction between our nations, with the notable exception perhaps of the treatment of some Kiwis in Australia and of refugees.
That’s about it, in terms of close neighbours anyway. But looking further afield, around the Pacific margins of Asia and right around the mighty Pacific Ocean, we interact with a range of nations on trade and diplomatic matters, not all of whom share our world view.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was at the recent East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and addressed delegates about the very tricky political situations, some violent, in, or between, countries in the region.
Ms Ardern particularly called out the maverick states and those engaged in nefarious activities. Myanmar, whose military junta was not invited to the summit for the second consecutive year, was rightly at the top of her list of the reprehensible, for its bloody and repressive treatment of its people, the executions and massacres.
North Korea is another charming neighbour to have, not only for the way despot Kim Jong-Un deals with his people, but for his utter recklessness when it comes to testing out his ballistic missiles by flying them across the skies of Japan. It’s a bit like the kids next door setting off fireworks over your house, but with potentially much more dire consequences.
Then there are also tensions in the South China Sea, particularly over military manoeuvring around disputed islands, and over China’s bete noire, Taiwan. China’s human rights abuses in Hong Kong and of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang are also blots on the geopolitical landscape.
Hot on the heels of the East Asia Summit, leaders of the G20 countries are now meeting in Bali.
Encouragingly, United States President Joe Biden, who Ms Ardern talked with in Phnom Penh, has had a significant meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping to talk about Taiwan. While they clearly did not agree on many issues, including Taiwan, the expressed desire for more frequent discussions and no future Cold War is a good thing.
Seeing the two presidents smile and shake hands brings a huge sense of relief. It reminds us that, on our small planet, we are all neighbours.
