Black Budget (New Zealand)

Within a year, the government was confronted with a balance of payments crisis caused by the collapse of the price of butter in Britain (New Zealand's largest export market at the time).

[2] The budget was prepared by the cabinet finance committee of Walter Nash, Arnold Nordmeyer, Phil Holloway and Tom Skinner.

Member of Parliament Warren Freer was told by Holloway that it was Nash rather than Nordmeyer who fought for the "draconian measures" finally adopted.

Nordmeyer was forever tainted by the 'black budget', which gave him a reputation as a puritanical 'wowser' who was opposed to simple working class pleasures such as automobiles, beer and cigarettes.

However, the brewery was forced to pull the campaign from television and internet in February 2011 (though newspaper ads were unaffected) after the New Zealand Advertising Standards Authority partially upheld a complaint laid by Progressive Party leader Jim Anderton that the campaign was "unethical, inaccurate and distorted history" as little beer was then imported to New Zealand and the budget raised the excise only to the same as local beers.