2006
ISBN: 978-0864735331
This is a personal memoir that records the author's early years on the West Coast, and his study at the University of Canterbury. Shallcrass joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1962, serving as a New Zealand diplomat in Indonesia, in Hong Kong in the lead-up to New Zealand recognising the Peoples Republic of China, and in Saigon during the closing stages of the Vietnam war. He joined the New Zealand Treasury in 1977 where he worked in the later years of the Muldoon Government as a member of the team advising Cabinet on international finance and trade policy. A key player in Treasury as David Lange and Roger Douglas restructured the economy, Shallcrass managed the Government's overseas borrowing, and the privatisation programme that saw Air New Zealand, the Bank of New Zealand, Telecom, and NZ Rail pass out of public ownership, and the Development Finance Corporation vanish into history.