Leadsled,
I don't think the Night VFR rating (call it what you will) is as unique to Oz as you may think. Perhaps the Oz version is more upswept and restrictive than elsewhere.
The NZ one required the 5 hours instrument time need for the PPL.
I know from experience some small airfields have no visual reference what so ever once you have passed the up wind runway lights. You needed to be able to climb away in the dials on a moonless night. Not something that was an issue in daylight.
Corky
How did you get the night time in NZ without having a Night Rating? Were you an Ag pilot? I know a few of these who accumulated a few night hours getting home after sowing the last load right before dark. Some of them never had the night rating signed off.
AerocatS2A
In NZ it used to be 25 nm from an airfield with lights, not just the aerodrome of departure. It was never clear whether or not those lights had to be actually on but you could do a cross country by being within 25 nm. Effectively the each field could be 50 nm apart with the 25 nm rings over lapping (just).
There used to be a 16 km viz, 3000' cloud base requirement as well, that is now gone and day VFR minima apply. I'm not sure I'd want to go VFR at night down to 5 km viz, 600' cloud base.