Exit Strategies

New Zealand knows how it feels to be left out in the cold by a trading partner.

- Bill Ralston

It is difficult for many New Zealanders to summon up much empathy for the UK over its Brexit quagmire. In 1973, the UK entered the European Economic Community, now known as the EU, and most of our biggest export market evaporated almost immediately. London cavalierly cast us aside with scarcely a thought. Those of us old enough to recall what later ensued are the ones largely suffering that empathy lapse.

Sir Robert Muldoon’s National Government took New Zealand’s hitherto excellent credit rating and used it to borrow the cash to make up for the massive drop in our earnings that resulted from the loss of the British market.