Britain's entry to the then-EEC was a shock for Australia. Brexit will shock only the Brits.
Trade Minister Steve Ciobo is adopting a "life will go on" view of this coming week's referendum on whether Britain remains or leaves the European Union.
But this should not disguise concerns among senior officials in the Malcolm Turnbull government about prospects of a Brexit that would risk weakening the UK as an economic and political force in Europe and ultimately the Union itself. 
Ciobo tells the AFR Weekend that irrespective of the vote on   June 23 Australia is committed to pushing ahead with negotiation of a free trade agreement with the EU, scoping studies for which are expected to be completed by the end of the year enabling formal negotiations to begin.
"We want as broad a based agreement with Europe as possible," Ciobo says.
Anything that diminishes the EU as an economic and political bloc is clearly not in the Australian national interest whatever might be said by people like former London mayor and Tory leadership aspirant Boris Johnson about a Brexit drawing Australia and Britain closer together.
It might be news to those misguided souls in this country, echoing Johnson's Eurosceptic "Anglosphere" views, but the world has moved on, and so have we since the days when Britain's accession to the European Economic Community was cause for a national panic attack.
We would all be rooned was the cry from the farm lobby back then, used to a cosy relationship with the mother country fostered by a government in Canberra that had fixed itself to London's teat.
We are now living in a globalised and globalising world in which Britain is a relatively minor component on its own.
History is important and here I'm indebted to Dr Annmarie Elijah, associate director of the ANU Centre for European Studies, for a paper reminding us of circumstances surrounding Britain's accession to the EEC and the acrimony that attended that event.
As she points out "British membership of the then EEC was regarded as a threat to Australian export markets, Commonwealth co-operation and even bilateral political ties".
A preferential trade deal between Canberra and London - embodied in the UK-Australia Trade Agreement that grew out of the "imperial preference" Ottawa Agreements of 1932 - was suspended on Britain's entry.
Forty-three years later, scrambling the egg by replacing UKATA with a new Australia-UK trade deal would take time, even if Australia was given preference.
Disruption to existing trading relationships, to use the "disruptive" word of the moment, would not be in our interests, and nor would a weakening of Britain economically, leaving aside threats to the entire European construct.
What do the numbers tell us? At the end of 2014, the 28 members of the EU as a bloc constituted Australia's largest source of direct foreign investment, totaling $169.6 billion - or 25 per cent of the Australian total. Australian direct investment in the EU stood at $83.5 billion.
Two-way merchandise trade to Europe in 2014-15 reached $56.8 billion, but perhaps a more salient number is that Australian exports of around $12 billion accounted for just 0.5 per cent of European imports, a ranking of 34. This provides ample scope for improvement under an Australia-EU trade agreement.
Merchandise exports to the UK in 2014-15 accounted for about two-thirds of total exports to the EU, and UK direct investment about half of overall EU investment. These are not inconsiderable proportions of the total, but are not a reason to go along with a Brexit that weakens the European experiment.
Advocates of the remain case, led by embattled British Prime Minister David Cameron, have been fighting a rearguard against a motley crew of Eurosceptics, opportunists like Boris Johnson who has his eyes on Cameron's job, anti-immigration campaigners of the far right and little Englanders whose views might be characterised by a belief that all wogs begin at Dover.
Virtually to a man and woman economists in Britain and Europe are warning of dangers. Their case is bolstered by a useful OECD document - The Economic Consequences of Brexit - that describes a range of negative implications, not least the risk of capital outflows that might threaten Britain's record-high current account deficit of 7 per cent of GDP.
Little wonder that markets have been in turmoil this week, and sterling has come under further pressure. We are going to see more of this before next Thursday, and, worse, if commonsense falters.