Talk:1984 New Zealand general election

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Clarification required

Immediately after the election there was a constitutional crisis when Muldoon initially refused to follow the advice of the incoming Labour government and devalue the New Zealand Dollar.

This doesn't make sense to me. Muldoon must have taken on the role of caretaker PM during the election period. Nevertheless, he was still PM till he handed in his commission to the Governor-General. The PM-in-waiting, Lange, might have wanted the dollar to be devalued, but he didn't have any power to implement that wish till he was actually sworn in as PM. Since when does a caretaker PM on his way out take orders from the incoming PM about economic matters such as devaluation? Surely the incoming PM waits till he's sworn in, then he acts as quickly as he deems fit. In the meantime, the G-G takes advice from the incumbent PM - in this case, Muldoon - and only that person. That's what the Westminster system is all about. Can someone explain to me what this "constitutional crisis" was all about? -- JackofOz (talk) 13:18, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

New Zealand has no written constitution, so many actions are unconstitutional without being explicitly illegal - they're constitutional conventions. One of these, the Caretaker Convention holds that the Caretaker PM's job is just to keep things 'ticking over' until the new government takes power; he may not take any policy actions, as they explicitly have no mandate to do so. In the event of some sort of crisis where immediate policy action is necessary, the Caretaker PM is meant to follow the instruction of the incoming PM. After the 1984 election there was a major run on the dollar - just the sort of crisis where the caretaker PM ought to consult incoming PM, but Muldoon refused to do so. Furius (talk) 09:55, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Muldoon drunk - any legitimate sources?

A student magazine, a potentially unreliable TVNZ article and a youtube video that has now been terminated. Somebody really should fix this (or remove it entirely) and put some other, reliable sources elsewhere too... — Preceding unsigned comment added by DD-Dogg (talk • contribs) 09:19, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, here's a more durable reference for the same: http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/eyewitness-news-snap-election-setup-1984 Furius (talk) 08:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

For a print reference, see Barry Gustafson His Way, a Biography of Robert Muldoon, 2000. P375 discusses his appearance on television. The pages immediately before that give an indication of how much he had drunk that day. Later on p 375 is an analysis of other factors which might have affected his decision making capability at the time.-gadfium 19:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Bob Jones

The infobox says that his seat was Tauranga, but the article says that a different NZ Party candidate finished second in that electorate. Can anyone help clarify, did Jones even stand for his own party? Mattlore (talk) 08:04, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Results Map - error

I'm not sure how to edit it myself, but the results map seems to currently have Wanganui electorate as being National-won, when the actual seat was won by Labour with the Soccreds in a distant second place — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bob27271912 (talk • contribs) 04:24, 14 February 2024 (UTC)