The 40th New Zealand Parliament was a term of the

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. Its composition was determined by the 1981 election, and it sat until the 1984 election. The 40th Parliament was the third and final term of the third National Party government.

Robert Muldoon Sir Robert David Muldoon (; 25 September 19215 August 1992) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 31st Prime Minister of New Zealand, from 1975 to 1984, while leader of the National Party. Serving as a corporal and sergeant in th ...

, who served as both

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

and

Minister of Finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...

, remained in power. The Labour Party, led by former Prime Minister

Bill Rowling Sir Wallace Edward Rowling (; 15 November 1927 – 31 October 1995), commonly known as Bill Rowling, was a New Zealand politician who was the 30th prime minister of New Zealand from 1974 to 1975. He held office as the parliamentary leader of t ...

, had made significant gains (actually winning the largest portion of the popular vote), but remained in opposition. The Social Credit Party was the only other opposition party in the 40th Parliament, holding two seats. The 40th Parliament consisted of ninety-two representatives, the same as in the previous election. All of these representatives were chosen by single-member geographical electorates, including four special

Māori electorates In New Zealand politics, Māori electorates, colloquially known as the Māori seats, are a special category of electorate that give reserved positions to representatives of Māori in the New Zealand Parliament. Every area in New Zealand is ...

Electoral boundaries for the 40th Parliament

Overview of seats

The table below shows the number of MPs in each party following the 1981 election and at dissolution: Notes *The Working Government majority is calculated as all Government MPs less all other parties.

Initial composition of the 40th Parliament

There were no by-elections held during the term of the 40th Parliament.

Notes

References

* * * *{{cite book , last= Wilson , first= James Oakley , title= New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 , edition= 4th , orig-year=First published in 1913 , year= 1985 , publisher=V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer , location= Wellington , oclc= 154283103 New Zealand parliaments