Couple's 'Australia is Safer than New Zealand' comment angers Kiwis

A French couple seems to have offended all of New Zealand after their suggestion ‘Australia was Safer’ was taken rather badly.

The comments came after the tourists were harassed by strangers while they were asleep in their campervan at Caroline Bay, New Zealand.

Francois and Fanny had recently spent eight months travelling around Australia with no issues.

The pair arrived in Queenstown last week and stopped in Invercargill and Dunedin before making their way up to Timaru (Where Caroline Bay is).

The couple told Stuff.Co.Nz that everything had gone smoothly until they parked their van at the Timaru freedom camping spot.

"Only here we have a problem," Fanny said.

The pair told reporters at 3.45am they were woken up by someone opening the side door of their van and screaming at them to ‘wake up’.

The door was unlocked because it opens on to the back of a kitchenette.

The couple said they locked the door and sat petrified as they heard the intruder get in to a car and leave.

They said it sounded like the car had other people in it and did a ‘burnout’ as it left.

"We did not know how many people there were," Fanny said.

After finally falling asleep another unknown person banged on their window at 8am, giving them another fright.

The couple was ‘too afraid’ to go outside and check what was going on.

"I think Australia is safer," Francois said.

A spokeswoman for the camping area said they thought the incident was a one off and felt it was a safe place.

The couple reported the incident to police.

When Stuff.Co.Nz shared the couple’s opinion and story on Facebook it was not taken well with almost 300 people jumping on to share their defense of New Zealand.

“One stupid intruder does not represent the NZ population,” one woman commented.

“Some people just aren’t cut out for life on the road,” another said.

Others were quick to point out their bad experiences in Australia.

“I’m not a Kiwi but I have been here four years and lived in Australia… I can tell that NZ is safer and it’s very people friendly,” another woman said.

Will Hunter said he understood why the couple felt the way they did as their only bad experience happened in New Zealand.

“This couple were here to see our wonderful country… For them, Australia was safer,” he said.