17 Jun 2021

The Rest is History: Muldoon's 1984 snap election announcement

From Lately, 10:40 pm on 17 June 2021

This week marks the anniversary of a pivtotal and notorious moment in New Zealand politics - on the 14th of June 1984, the Prime Minister Robrt Muldoon surprised the nation by calling a snap election to be held in a months time.

His attempt to catch the opposition unprepared backfired, and David Lange's Labour Party swept to power a month later.

To look back on this moment and what happened, Karyn speaks to writer and cartoonist Tom Scott who at the time was working in the parliamentary press gallery.