Epsom (New Zealand electorate)

Epsom is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The current MP for Epsom is John Banks MP of the ACT Party. He has held this position since the 2011 election.

Population centres

Epsom is based around central and eastern Auckland City. It contains the suburbs of Parnell, Remuera, Mount Eden, Newmarket, half of Greenlane and the eponymous suburb of Epsom. Under boundary changes sparked by the 2006 census, Epsom was enlarged to include the central city suburb of Grafton.

Epsom is predominately New Zealand European, and has an average income high above the national average. Epsom was created ahead of the first Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) election in 1996, carved out of the Remuera and Eden seats. Remuera was a safe seat for the National Party, having never elected a Member of Parliament from the Labour Party, while Eden was a bellwether seat, changing hands with the change of government. Both of these seats were held by National MPs - Christine Fletcher in Eden and Doug (later Sir Douglas) Graham in Remuera.

History

The Epsom seat was first contested in New Zealand's first MMP election in 1996. The National party candidate was Christine Fletcher; she came out of the election with the nation's biggest personal majority: a 19,000 vote margin over the second placed Labour candidate, Helen Duncan.

With Fletcher standing down at the 1999 election to focus on her role as the newly elected Mayor of Auckland, the electorate battle was a contest between new National candidate Richard Worth and ACT List MP Rodney Hide. Worth won the seat by approximately 1,900 votes. In 2002, he easily retained Epsom, with other parties contesting only the party vote.

The 2005 race for Epsom was won by Rodney Hide after a tough contest for the personal vote. As the leader of ACT, Hide was determined to contest Epsom in order to guarantee his party representation in the next parliament, should ACT not break the five percent threshold - under New Zealand electoral law, a party can gain representation by either getting five percent of the vote or by winning one or more constituency seats.

As it became more likely ACT would not break five percent, the campaign in Epsom became more intense, with Hide lobbying voters to vote strategically to keep ACT in Parliament, a message that ultimately prevailed, with National MP Richard Worth, defeated by 3,102 votes on election night and returned to Parliament via the National Party list. Hide increased his majority in 2008, but he stepped down as ACT leader in April 2011 after succumbing to a leadership challenge from Don Brash. The ACT party selected former Auckland Mayor John Banks as their candidate for the 2011 election, who won the contest.

Members of Parliament

Key

  National     ACT     Labour     Green  

Election	Winner
1996 election		Christine Fletcher
1999 election		Richard Worth
2002 election
2005 election		Rodney Hide
2008 election
2011 election		John Banks

List MPs

Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Epsom electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections.

Election	Winner
1998		Helen Duncan1
1999 election		Rodney Hide
2002 election		Rodney Hide
		Keith Locke
2005 election		Keith Locke
		Richard Worth
2008 election		Keith Locke
		Richard Worth2
2011 election		Paul Goldsmith
		David Parker

¹Replaced Jill White as list MP
²Resigned June 2009, list place taken by Cam Calder

Election results

2011 election

General Election 2011: Epsom
Notes: Green background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party Votes	%	±%
	ACT	John Banks		15,835	44.10	-11.96	939	2.55	-3.67
	National	Paul Goldsmith		13,574	37.80	+15.96	23,725	64.52	+1.93
	Labour	David Parker		3,751	10.45	-3.13	5,716	15.55	-4.54
	Green	David Hay		2,160	6.01	-1.39	4,424	12.03	+5.10
	Conservative	Simon Kan		342	0.95	+0.95	412	1.12	+1.12
	Independent	Penny Bright		124	0.35	+0.35
	Mana	Pat O'Dea		66	0.18	+0.18	91	0.16	+0.16
	Independent	Matthew Goode		59	0.16	+0.16
	NZ First						959	2.61	+1.16
	Māori						217	0.59	+0.01
	Legalise Cannabis						118	0.32	+0.14
	United Future						116	0.32	-0.35
	Libertarianz						31	0.08	+0.03
	Alliance						12	0.03	-0.001
	Democrats						9	0.02	+0.01
Informal votes				443			160
Total Valid votes				35,911			36,769
	ACT hold		Majority	2,261	6.30	-27.92

Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 48,761

2008 election

General Election 2008: Epsom
Notes: Green background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party Votes	%	±%
	ACT	Y Rodney Hide		21,102	56.06	+13.44	2,389	6.22	+2.83
	National	Richard Worth		8,220	21.84	-12.11	24,030	62.60	+4.09
	Labour	Kate Sutton		5,112	13.58	-3.57	7,711	20.09	-7.14
	Green	Keith Locke		2,787	7.40	+3.18	2,662	6.93	+1.60
	United Future	Janet Tuck		163	0.43	-0.52	258	0.67	-1.07
	Kiwi	Grace Haden		114	0.30	-	80	0.21	-
	RAM	Rafe Copeland		79	0.21	-	27	0.07	-
	Human Rights	Andrena Bishop		68	0.18	+0.09
	NZ First						557	1.45	-0.98
	Māori						222	0.58	+0.28
	Progressive						133	0.35	-0.22
	Bill and Ben						120	0.31	-
	Legalise Cannabis						70	0.18	-0.11
	Family Party						67	0.17	-
	Libertarianz						19	0.05	-0.01
	Alliance						13	0.03	+0.00
	Workers Party						13	0.03	-
	Pacific						10	0.03	-
	Democrats						6	0.02	-0.00
	RONZ						2	0.01	+0.00
Informal votes				259			96
Total Valid votes				37,645			38,389
	ACT hold		Majority	12,882	34.22	+25.55

2005 election

Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Party Votes	%
ACT	Y Rodney Hide	15251	42.62	1237	3.40
National	N Richard Worth	12149	33.95	21310	58.51
Labour	Stuart Nash	6138	17.15	9915	27.22
Green	Keith Locke	1513	4.23	1941	5.33
United	Janet Tuck	340	0.95	636	1.75
Progressive	Fatima Ashrafi	149	0.42	205	0.56
Destiny	Rod Gabb	114	0.32	66	0.18
Direct Democracy	Tin Yau Chan	97	0.27	28	0.08
IND	Anthony Van Den Heuvel	34	0.10	-	-
NZ First	-	-	-	887	2.44
Māori Party	-	-	-	107	0.29
Christian Heritage	-	-	-	33	0.09
ALCP	-	-	-	25	0.07
Libertarianz	-	-	-	20	0.05
Alliance	-	-	-	11	0.03
Democrats	-	-	-	6	0.02
One NZ	-	-	-	3	0.01
99 MP	-	-	-	6	0.02
Family Rights PP	-	-	-	3	0.01
Republic of NZ	-	-	-	1	0.00
informal votes		245		94
total valid votes		35,785		36,421
ACT gain from National	Majority	3,102

sourced from electionresults.govt.nz

External links

• Electorate Profile Parliamentary Library