Close Up - Big Dealers (featuring John Key)

Television (Full Length Episode) – 1987

This episode of current affairs show Close Up offers a fascinating portrait of the early days of New Zealand's foreign exchange market. Reporter Ted Sheehan heads into "the pit" (trading room), and chronicles the working life of a senior forex dealer, 25-year-old accountancy graduate John Key. The "smiling assassin" (and future Prime Minister) is a calm and earnest presence amongst the young cowboys playing for fortunes and Porsches, months before the 1987 sharemarket crash. As Sheehan says, "they're like addicts who eat, breathe and sleep foreign exchange dealing".

It’s the sort of job where you can come to work in the morning in a BMW but if you make a million dollar mistake during the day, then as far as the boss is concerned, you can go home on the bus.
– Reporter Ted Sheehan