“We (Tasmania) will stop writing songs about Tasmania when people on the mainland stop thinking about us as second-grade citizens,” I explained to an ex-mainlander.

The reply was brutal.

“What do you mean stop thinking? People don’t think about Tasmania at all.”

The evidence is everywhere – and not just in the AFL.

For 140 years Australians have celebrated being girt by sea in the national anthem yet ignored the state that’s the girtiest.

In 1956 Australia’s Olympic athletes wore tracksuits depicting only the mainland, in 1982 a performance at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony left us off the map.

The last Commonwealth Games saw Australia’s swimmers decked out in swimsuits which depicted the mainland but couldn’t find room for Tasmania after kangaroos – a species well-known for their 200m backstroke - had been added to the design.

Meanwhile, Tasmania contributed 50 per cent more than its population warranted to this year’s Commonwealth Games team, and don’t bother thanking us for Ariarne Titmus – you’re welcome.

And if you thought sport was the only place it happens, think again.

Just a few years before Arnott’s brought out a terrible version of Shapes so that people would remember they liked Shapes again, the national biscuit giant produced an Australia-shaped number which was, in fact, not in the shape of Australia because it excluded Tasmania.

You can argue all you like that such a biscuit would have been a conceptual nightmare but one would think if anyone could replicate the shape of Australia in a biscuit, it would be the company whose one and only job is to make Shapes. 

So what do we do about this?

Just like Gary Ablett returning to Geelong, Tasmania needs to go where it’s loved.

In Gary’s case, it meant leaving Gold Coast - a landscape that sporting codes fall over themselves to inhabit in the naive hope it will suddenly cease being indifferent to sport. 

And when Gold Coast clubs fail to get off the ground, take national sporting bodies for all they’re worth and move on to the next victim, humble-yet-faithful Tasmania gets jilted at the altar - again.

Gillon McLachlan doesn’t think we’re part of the country so neither should we - I say we take our proverbial bat and ball and move to New Zealand.

Under Gil’s regime we’d probably have a better chance of being admitted to the AFL if we weren’t part of the country.

You can just see the press conference with a smiling Gil announcing that the sport’s globalisation push is beginning to pay off, before heading off to pose for photos alongside a Tas Zealand marquee player, circus performers and a man in a giant football costume.

But why New Zealand, you ask? For a start, we were both discovered at the same time by the same man - Abel Tasman.

New Zealand find it much easier than we do to get admitted into Australian sporting competitions – just look at the NRL, A-League, NBL and the old ANZ Championship.

We share a 42-degree latitude, so you know we’re thinking on the same lines.

Plus the Kiwis know what we’re going through.

Just like England claims Andy Murray when he wins and palms him back off to Scotland when he doesn’t, Australia treats New Zealand like the unpopular kid who brings pizza to school.

We take the Cro Show (Crowded House, Russell Crowe and Trent Croad) as our own and then once the Kiwis have nothing left to offer, we make jibes behind their back about improper relations with sheep.

If Australia is the big brother New Zealand never wanted but always had, Tasmania could be the little brother it always wanted but never had.

Long live the West Island! 

Oh and someone better get started on a Tas Zealand song.