Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan thinks New Zealand's attitude to Australian rugby represents a 'master-servant' mentality.
Well, he should know.
It’s something most other New Zealand sports have had to put up with for decades.
The most obvious example of 'master-servant' matters in Australasian sport is the failure of Australian authorities to do anything to assist New Zealand cricket.
Sure they sent B teams over here but they were sent with a view to Australia's future – assessing young players, especially before Ashes tours to England, to see how they might cope in New Zealand conditions ahead of those tours.
Even the 'Test' match they played in 1946 after the end of the Second World War was only ever awarded Test status retrospectively.
It says plenty that once Test contact was made in 1973 that it took only five Tests for New Zealand to claim their first win, in the memorable encounter at Lancaster Park.
But if it hadn't rained in the second Test in Sydney, there was every chance New Zealand's win would have been even earlier.
Within 12 years, New Zealand claimed a Test series win on Australian soil. Oh, the wasted years!
There are many other examples. New Zealand across a variety of sports would look at ways of increasing trans-Tasman contests to create support at New Zealand venues. Then two things happened: the Australians decided they would like the opportunity to host similar events only to stage them and then forget about them, or they would put up second-string opponents to grow their depth.
How often do we see in the competitions organised now in the trans-Tasman bubble that New Zealand teams are on the receiving end of lousy officiating.
Rugby league is the most obvious example. Any time, and it hasn't been often over 25 years, that the Warriors look like causing some problems in the NRL they get dumped on with controversial rulings. Once the game is over, just like the underarm incident in cricket, the laws get changed so they can't happen again.
However, the damage has been done by then.
Every obstacle possible has been put in the way of New Zealand's soccer franchises that have participated in the Australian Football League while it was only the exceptional playing quality that saw the Breakers put together a string of series-winning efforts in the National Basketball league.
But back to that 'master-servant' relationship McLennan mentioned.
How much of a role did New Zealand Rugby play in the administrative shambles that Australia has been over the last decade?
Zilch.
In contrast to New Zealand Cricket's relationship with Australia in years of yore, New Zealand Rugby has bent over backwards to assist the game in Australia. Through the 1920s and 1930s when Australian rugby was hanging on by the skin of its teeth, New Zealand sent teams nearly every second year to keep the game afloat.
In the 1960s, when similar problems were being felt, the contact was again stepped up and in the wake of the Woeful Wallabies tour of 1972, it was contact with New Zealand provinces, in the days of greater access to air travel, who provided the sustenance to allow Australia to build for the great days they enjoyed in the 1980s and beyond.
And that had benefits on both sides of the Tasman.
Sometimes what appears as a 'master-servant' relationship occurs for a reason, and McLennan should be thankful for small mercies at a time when his organisation is hardly in a position to be calling the shots.
However, he can be assured there are plenty of New Zealand sports who know exactly how he feels.