Heather du Plessis-Allan: It's not hip to be square

Our Prime Minister's had a baby. While running the country! How cool and progressive are we?

We must be cool, right? Which other country can boast a breastfeeding mum as leader? None.

Just little old New Zealand, stuck in a corner of the South Pacific, showing the world how to be modern.

We've been cool and progressive for yonks. The first country to give women the vote. The little country that stood its ground on nuclear. An international example of how to respect the indigenous culture.

Naw. Aren't we cute?

Enjoy the memories, folks, because our coolness is over.

Somehow, we have changed. We're being left behind.

How did Ireland become more progressive than us? Ireland!

The place was once so conservative that parents let the church turn their unmarried, pregnant daughters into laundry slaves rather than bear the shame of a fatherless child gurgling in the lounge.

Yet the Irish have rushed headlong into modernity and overwhelmingly voted to legalise abortion this year.

Meanwhile, abortion is a crime in New Zealand. Women and doctors get around that law by pretending the mum will have a breakdown if she gives birth. But, it's still a crime.

Not so progressive.

Then, this week, Canada as good as legalised recreational marijuana use. It is only the second country in the world to do so.

It wasn't because Canadians are gagging for a collective hot-boxing session. It's more that they realise kids are getting stoned anyway, and they may as well take the profits of weed sales away from criminals.

Down here in Aotearoa, the best we have is the promise of a referendum on weed.

Which is a joke. Because New Zealand loves its pot. Kiwis are among the most prolific users of weed in the world according to the UN.

Even the Prime Minister's baby isn't really a symbol of our progress. Jacinda Ardern isn't a breastfeeding PM because New Zealand was fine with electing a young, hip woman who was about the right age to start a family while running the country.

She's there because Winston Peters chose her. In fact, the constant "shut up about the baby" cries from Kiwis suggest we're not all fans of what happened at Auckland Hospital this week.

Why are we being left behind?

Here's an explanation. We're becoming more conservative. We're turning into a nation of fuddy-duddies. We have chosen to put on our granddad slippers and watch the world from the comfort of our rocking chair, rather than get out there and shake the world up.

How else do you explain us sitting on our hands about abortion and cannabis reform? And more than a dozen countries legalising same sex marriage before us?

How else do you explain Simon Bridges as the leader of the country's biggest party? The guy voted against same-sex marriage, doesn't support abortion legislation, doesn't support marijuana law liberalisation and doesn't support euthanasia. The guy is 41. Going on 141. It's like he did his apprenticeship under Rob Muldoon.

Our conversion to conservatism hasn't happened overnight. It has crept up on us. Some say the creep started as many as 15 years ago.

It may be the reason some once-proud Labour seats have turned blue and never gone back. Think Auckland Central. It was held by the left since 1905. Then it went blue in 2008.

The blueness is so strong that not even the young, hip Ardern could win Auckland Central back from the National Party. She tried a few times. In the end, she gave up and picked an easier electorate.

There's nothing wrong with picking blue over red, or red over blue. But there is something disappointing about turning into the granddads of the South Pacific.

Kiwis have always been brave enough to call out BS, then fall on the right side of history. It'd be a pity if those days are over.

• Heather du Plessis-Allan is on Newstalk ZB in Wellington, weekdays, 8.30am-noon.