David Lange celebrating 1984 election victory

Jubilant Labour supporters hoist leader David Lange into the air on the night of the snap election on 14 July 1984. As promised in the party's election manifesto, the following year the new government established a Royal Commission on the Electoral System, chaired by Justice John Wallace. Although Labour's leadership subsequently tried to ignore it, the Royal Commission's 1986 report was to kick-start a process of electoral reform that culminated a decade later in New Zealand's first election under Mixed Member Proportional representation, or MMP.

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