Well,as a Kiwi, it's... complicated. We did well when the "mother country" treated us and our exports as special. We pioneered frozen meat shipments as part of

Well,as a Kiwi, it's... complicated. We did well when the "mother country" treated us and our exports as special. We pioneered frozen meat shipments as part of that. [1] When the UK started treating us less favourably as it moved towards the EEC, (And because we were outcompeting the UK's own farmers), our economy was hit hard. We had to pivot the entire structure of our economy, away from a government subsidised agricultural model (like the EU, UK, and US are still running) to a free market one in a manner rarely seen in so called free market countries - no tariffs, no subsidies. It caused a lot of pain, bankruptcies, and suicides. And once we no longer had preferential access to the UK market, we had to go out and find our own markets. So while we initially succeeded because of colonialism, once the apron strings were cut to suit the needs of the colonial master, we succeeded in spite of colonialism. [1]: https://teara.govt.nz/en/sheep-farming/page-5 https://teara.govt.nz/en/sheep-farming/page-5