Also this time last year, the Government's Tax Working Group had released its report, recommending a comprehensive capital gains tax - which would also end in frustration for proponents.
For New Zealanders at the time, the threat of terror was something to consider only when travelling far afield of these shaky, backwater South Seas isles. Reports about "Kiwi jihadi" Taylor were largely met with scorn, and shared with derision.
Many of this generation will remember where they were when they first heard a mosque had been fired on in Christchurch. Then where they went looking for more information as word trickled out about just how serious the attack was. As a media organisation, we remain proud of our efforts in those hours to provide reliable up-to-the-minute information.
The history books now coldly record: On March 15, 2019, 51 people were fatally shot and 49 injured in attacks at two mosques in Christchurch.
Then ensued the dreadful days as accounts of the tragedy were related, official inquiries conducted and the funerals and public services held.
We were never the same again.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern offered condolences to the victims' families and to the survivors. She declared "they are us" in an attempt to unite the nation in a compassionate embrace around the traumatised Muslim community. She initiated laws to make military-style guns illegal.
The people we were a year ago this weekend, we are still. But we are changed. Sometimes a single event can invert our world, such as occurred on March 15, 2019.
What once may have been an offhand remark about immigrants or religion has become socially abhorrent. Jokes about terrorism groups have been consigned to the dustbin of history.
Some may crave a simpler time - such as that a single year ago - when we were unaware of the harsh realities of what hateful people were up to in their seedy online discussion groups.
But that is not who we are, anymore. Not after March 15.
In the coming week, we will return to the events of that day, we will talk again with those who were there and survived. We will remember the slain.
New Zealand and, particularly, its Prime Minister have become an example to the world in how to respond to the most contemptible of provocation: a proffered embrace to hold together those who are shattered and a firm hand, restricting access to harmful implements which could be raised against us.
Terror struck here but it did not strike us down.
