Juggernaut: Unravelling the ‘incredible’ story of the 1984 election

This week marks 40 years since then-prime minister Robert Muldoon’s infamous, inebriated snap election announcement.

That election – dubbed the “Schnapps election” because of Muldoon’s visible drunkenness – would set in motion a seismic chain of events in New Zealand politics, the impacts of which still echo today.

Soon, Muldoon would be replaced by Labour leader David Lange, while finance minister Roger Douglas’ introduction of “Rogernomics” would impose a commercial model on almost every facet of New Zealand life.

Spinoff editor at large Toby Manhire, who also co-hosts the Gone By Lunchtime politics podcast, has interviewed more than 20 people at the heart of the changes resulting from the snap election.

The result is Juggernaut, a six-part podcast series that is being released weekly, with the first episode out now.

In the series, Manhire dives deep into the archives to tell the story of a pivotal chapter in Aotearoa’s history.

Manhire told Saturday Morning the story of the “Schnapps election” had been “well chronicled”, but many people under 40 had “quite limited” knowledge of the events.

“A lot of people know those kind of key scenes – Muldoon slurring the announcement of the election, or David Lange at the Oxford Union – but beyond that it’s not terribly comprehensive.”

During the Oxford Union debate on nuclear weapons, Lange told American evangelist Jerry Falwell – in a now-famous exchange – that he could “smell the uranium” on Falwell’s breath.

“I think it’s important to share stories in ways that people can find them or make them accessible, so that was the thinking behind it,” Manhire said.

“It’s an incredible story. It’s obviously a foundational moment in a lot of New Zealand politics and it warrants another go, I think, in a format that obviously has only existed in recent times.”

Politics during the time covered in the podcast were very different to politics today, he said.

As both the prime minister and the finance minister, Muldoon had managed to concentrate a lot of power in his own hands.

“There were other important people in his government, but it’s just something that’s kind of unimaginable today, the level of power that he wielded.”

As well as wage and interest rate freezes, there were price controls on dozens of different goods, Manhire said.

“There were import licences, which meant that a certain group of New Zealanders had the power to have this kind of limited supply of imported goods … there were these subsidies across the rural sector that were so elaborate and complicated that even the Federated Farmers wanted them to be lifted.

“You know, it was a totally different New Zealand, unrecognisable.”

The amount of alcohol “running through the corridors” of parliament in those days was astonishing, Manhire said.

One other jarring aspect of politics was how male-dominated it was.

The 1984 election marked a generational shift in the make-up of Cabinet, he said. Muldoon and his colleagues had served in the war and had a strict sense of hierarchy, while the incoming Labour government was “full of lawyers and academics”.

“It was a step change in terms of focus, youth, everything.”

Manhire said many people who he approached for the podcast were happy to speak, but some were not – generally for health reasons.

The challenge was to dig out aspects of the story that had not already been well-canvassed.

“It’s a really interesting exercise to ask people to tell you stories about things that happened 40 years ago. It’s a big ask. And the interesting thing is that over that time, I think lots of it calcifies,” Manhire said.

“You get used to telling the main parts of that story over and over again … If you can shake the tin a bit and and find other parts of the story, that’s where the magic really happened.”

New episodes of Juggernaut will be released every Thursday.