The 37th New Zealand Parliament was a term of the
New Zealand Parliament
The New Zealand Parliament ( mi, Pāremata Aotearoa) is the unicameral legislature of New Zealand, consisting of the King of New Zealand (King-in-Parliament) and the New Zealand House of Representatives. The King is usually represented by hi ...
. It was elected at the
1972 general election on 25 November of that year.
1972 general election
The 1972 general election was held on Saturday, 25 November.
A total of 87
MPs were elected; 58 represented
North Island electorates, 25 represented
South Island electorates, and the remaining four represented
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 ...
; this was an increase in the number of MPs by three since the , and the gain was all for the North Island. 1,583,256 voters were enrolled and the official turnout at the election was 89.1%.
Sessions
The 37th Parliament sat for three sessions, and was prorogued on 10 October 1975.
Ministries
The
National Party, which had come to power at the , was defeated by the
Labour Party at the .
Norman Kirk
Norman Eric Kirk (6 January 1923 – 31 August 1974) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 29th prime minister of New Zealand from 1972 until his sudden death in 1974.
Born into poverty in Southern Canterbury, Kirk left school at a ...
formed the
third Labour Government and led the Kirk Ministry until his sudden death on 31 August 1974. After
Hugh Watt
Hugh Watt (19 March 1912 – 4 February 1980) was a New Zealand politician who was a Labour member of Parliament and the acting prime minister of New Zealand between 31 August and 6 September 1974, following the death of Prime Minister Norm ...
had been acting
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 i ...
for the first few days of September 1974, Kirk was succeeded by
Bill Rowling on 6 September. The Rowling Ministry lasted until the end of the parliamentary term, when the Labour Government was defeated by National in the .
Overview of seats
The table below shows the number of MPs in each party following the 1972 election and at dissolution:
Notes
*The Working Government majority is calculated as all Government MPs less all other parties.
Initial composition of the 37th Parliament
Select committees
For the 37th Parliament, elected from the 1972 general election, there were the following
select committees
Select or SELECT may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Select'' (album), an album by Kim Wilde
* ''Select'' (magazine), a British music magazine
* ''MTV Select'', a television program
* ''Select Live'', New Zealand's C4 music program ...
in the House of Representatives, as follows (Ministers of relevant portfolios are in bold):
By-elections during 37th Parliament
There was one by-election held during the term of the 37th Parliament.
Notes
References
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*
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*{{cite book , last= Wilson , first= James Oakley , title= New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 , edition= 4th , orig-year= First ed. published 1913 , year= 1985 , publisher= V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer , location= Wellington , oclc=154283103
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