The UK is still a rabies-free country, despite those "updated import rules" - which, incidentally, were put into effect VERY reluctantly and with great pressure from Brussels to finally adhere to common EU law... All those doomsayers who were painting apocalyptic scenarios were proven wrong. BTW, Switzerland and much larger and much more populated Germany are rabies-free countries as well, despite liberal-in-comparison pet import regulations.

I also know Australians who don't travel because getting their pets back into Australia is so complicated and costly.
I can understand the whole thing when animals are imported from parts of the world with endemic rabies - but the UK? Why not treat all rabies-free countries the same as New Zealand?