41st New Zealand Parliament

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "41st New Zealand Parliament" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

41st Parliament of New Zealand
← 40th Parliament 42nd Parliament →
Parliament House, Wellington
Overview
Legislative body	New Zealand Parliament
Term	15 August 1984 – 29 July 1987
Election	1984 New Zealand general election
Government	Fourth Labour Government
House of Representatives
Members	95
Speaker of the House	Gerard Wall from 28 May 1985 — Basil Arthur until 1 May 1985 †
Leader of the House	Geoffrey Palmer
Prime Minister	David Lange
Leader of the Opposition	Jim Bolger — Jim McLay until 26 March 1986 — Robert Muldoon until 29 November 1984
Sovereign
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Governor-General	Paul Reeves — David Beattie until 22 November 1985
Sessions
1st 15 August 1984 – 12 December 1985 2nd 26 February 1986 – 29 July 1987

The 41st New Zealand Parliament was a term of the Parliament of New Zealand. Its composition was determined by the 1984 elections, and it sat until the 1987 elections.

The 41st Parliament was the first term of the fourth Labour Party government. It marked the end of three terms of National Party administration under Robert Muldoon. David Lange become Prime Minister and Roger Douglas became Minister of Finance — the economic reforms undertaken by Douglas, nicknamed Rogernomics, would prove to be a defining feature of the fourth Labour government, and were deeply unpopular with Labour's traditional support base. The National Party, now in opposition, experienced a number of leadership disputes, replacing Muldoon first with Jim McLay and then with Jim Bolger.

The 41st Parliament consisted of ninety-five representatives, the highest number since the 10th Parliament (elected in 1887). All of these representatives were chosen by single-member geographical electorates, including four Māori electorates.

The table below shows the number of MPs in each party following the 1984 election and at dissolution:

Notes

• The Working Government majority is calculated as all Government MPs less all other parties.

The tables below shows the results of the 1984 general election:

Key

Table footnotes:

There were a number of changes during the term of the 41st Parliament.

• Basil Arthur, the long-serving Labour MP for Timaru, died in 1985. The by-election in Timaru was won by Maurice McTigue of the National Party.

• Gustafson, Barry (1986). The First 50 Years : A History of the New Zealand National Party. Auckland: Reed Methuen. ISBN 0-474-00177-6.
• Norton, Clifford (1988). New Zealand Parliamentary Election Results 1946-1987: Occasional Publications No 1, Department of Political Science. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington. ISBN 0-475-11200-8.