Summer reissue: Lange and Muldoon clash, two days after the election. Our live updates editor is on the case.

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In a ranking of the most dramatic, unhinged days in New Zealand politics, July 16, 1984 would be right up there. David Lange would later call the day “perhaps the most extraordinary of my life in politics” and he was yet to be sworn in as prime minister.

Sadly (or mercifully, depending on your point of view), this day, a couple of days after the 84 election, elapsed long before the advent of live blogs, podcasts and all that. But let not such details stand in the way. Below, and with the considerable benefit of hindsight and creative licence, we present July 16, 1984, as it happened.

Juggernaut: The Story of the Fourth Labour Government is available wherever you get your podcasts.

First published June 20, 2024.