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Story: Taxes

Muldoon the sardine

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Muldoon the sardine
This cartoon depicts Prime Minister and Finance Minister Robert Muldoon in 1977 as a sardine, squeezed by rising prices and increasing costs of government expenditure. At this time taxes were not raising sufficient funds to cover government spending. The shortfall was made up by overseas borrowing – effectively passing the cost on to future taxpayers.

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Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: A-289-015

by Sid Scales

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Paul Goldsmith, Taxes – Gradual complication of the tax system – 1960 to 1984, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/cartoon/21550/muldoon-the-sardine (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Paul Goldsmith, published 27 October 2009, updated 2 September 2016.