Back in 1979, New Zealand cartoonist and satirist Tom Scott, writing in NZ Listener magazine, had this to say about New Zealand: "Terrible tragedy in the South Seas. Three million people trapped alive."
The big news in 2003 was that we hit the four million population mark, and more than half of that increase was due to immigration. Given that we have around 44 million sheep, one New Zealander still equates to a whole lot of fresh lamb. Look beyond the farm gate, though, and you'll find we've caught up with the rest of the world. We may bob about at the bottom of the Southern Hemisphere, but it would be unfair to consider the country a backwater.
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