Reg Boorman

Reginald George (Reg) Boorman (born 1935) was a New Zealand politician of the Labour Party.

He won the Wairarapa seat in 1984, when he defeated Ben Couch. Following the 1987 election, he was defeated by Wyatt Creech after an appeal to the Electoral Court.

On election night 1987, Boorman won by a mere 11 votes, but this was reduced to one vote following a full recount. The single vote majority led to Boorman being nicknamed "Landslide" by his Labour Party colleagues and the media. National Party Candidate Creech later challenged that result on the grounds that Boorman had violated new laws about election spending as a result of deducting the (then new) GST Tax amounts in his spending return, effectively reducing his declared spend by 10%. Creech also challenged more than 200 votes (on various grounds). The Electoral Court approved Creech's petition, and Creech won the seat in 1988 with a majority of 34 votes (9994 to 9960).

References

  • Wilson, James Oakley (1985), New Zealand parliamentary record, 1840-1984 (4th ed.), Wellington, [N.Z.]: Government Printer