Although New Zealand continued to assist Britain in situations such as the Malayan Emergency, it now became connected to Australia and the United States through the ANZUS agreement.

Domestically, the First National Government presided over a steady rise in the average standard of living, and by 1957 New Zealand was, in the words of the historian Keith Sinclair, "a materialist's paradise."

Under National's leadership, according to the publication, people now had more money, pensions, cattle, sheep, university scholarships, overseas trips, radios, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, electric toasters, houses, motor vehicles, and telephones.

Before World War II New Zealand lacked an independent foreign policy, instead opting to simply follow and support Britain.

At the start of the war it had been assumed that the Royal Navy would protect New Zealand, but the Fall of Singapore showed this to be a false assumption.

The beginning of the Cold War, and communist successes in China made many New Zealanders feel in need of this protection.

New Zealand therefore entered the ANZUS pact with Australia and the United States, each pledging to defend the others if they were attacked.

Fear of the communist threat from Asia also motivated the introduction of compulsory military training and New Zealand's participation in the Korean War and the Malayan Emergency.

However the popularity of these policies soon became evident, and National began to moderate its opposition, promising that it would not abolish the welfare system Labour had enacted.

Labour's interventionist ethos combined with the economic restrictions caused by World War II meant that the economy was highly regulated and consumer choice limited.

National campaigned on the promise that it would keep the overall structure of Labour's welfare state while moderating it to reduce the power of trade unions, increase consumer choice and generally abolish unnecessary regulation.