Abstract
New Zealand become fully independent, in mentality as distinct from in form, in the late 1970s when it became unselfconsciously post-British, among both Maori and non-Maori. Norman Kirk, Prime Minister 1972-4, anticipated that; Sir Robert Muldoon (1975-84) stalled the translation into policy; David Lange (1984-89) presided over that translation; Helen Clark (1999-2008) embedded it; and the next political generation (with John Key as Prime Minister) will take it as read that New Zealand is an outward-looking outlier society in the world, a nation of the Pacific and not just in the Pacific.
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