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Here is the News - 1984 Snap Election Announcement

1992 Television
  • Documentary
  • NZ History

In this excerpt from 1992 documentary Here is the News, Prime Minister Robert Muldoon throws the political dice one last time. Ex TVNZ political reporter Jim Greenhough recalls the June night he and his colleagues crowded into a Beehive hallway to witness a visibly inebriated Muldoon call a snap election date of 14 July 1984. The Labour Party went on to win decisively; some say this ill-judged appearance was the moment that the Muldoon era sped towards its end. Muldoon's slurred answer to reporter Richard Griffin's question about election timing is one of Aotearoa's most famous political quotes.