Waitakere (New Zealand electorate)

Map showing extent of electorate for the 2008 and 2011 elections

Waitakere is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The current MP for Waitakere is Paula Bennett of the National Party. She has held this position since the 2008 election.

Waitakere is based around the western suburbs of Auckland. Given the nature of population growth in greater Auckland, and the addition of three new seats in Auckland, the boundaries of Waitakere have moved around at every electoral redistribution; in 1999, they were moved northwards as far as Helensville before being pulled back south three years later. In its current boundaries it includes the Waitakere City suburbs of Henderson, Ranui and Swanson before heading west over the Waitakere Ranges to Piha.

History

In an historical sense, the name Waitakere can refer to an electorate contested between the 1946 election and 1984 elections. This seat was held in an unbroken run by Labour Party MPs for its entire existence before it was scrapped. The name Waitakere was reclaimed and applied to a new seat in 1993, which was expanded ahead of the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional voting in 1996 election at the expense of the former seats of Henderson and Titirangi. A high turnout for the Alliance in West Auckland in 1996 split the left wing vote and denied sitting Titirangi MP Suzanne Sinclair re-election to Parliament, to the benefit of Marie Hasler, who she had ousted three years previously. Hasler was swept out of office in a pro-Labour tide across New Zealand in 1999 by Lynne Pillay. in 2002 Pillay held the seat in the face of a challenge from new Alliance leader Laila Harré, whose party was polling under the threshold and needed to win Waitakere to gain top-up seats in Parliament; in 2005 Pillay was re-elected with a five thousand vote majority over National's Paula Bennett; and in 2008 Bennett managed to unseat Pillay, with a majority of 632. Carmel Sepuloni was selected by the Labour Party to challenge Paula Bennett for her seat in 2011. On Election Night Paula Bennett was seen to have held the seat by 349 votes but after counting 3,130 special votes it was determined that Carmel Sepuloni had won by 11 votes. The National Party decided to request a judicial recount due to the tightness of the competition as Labour had also announced it would do in Christchurch Central, where the Labour candidate was beaten by 45 votes. The outcome of the Judicial recount was released on 17 December 2011 and announced that Paula Bennett was being returned as MP with 9 votes Majority. The margin was two orders of magnitude smaller than the number of voters who voted while not being on the electoral role, 393.

Members of Parliament

Name	Party	Elected	Left Office	Reason
Rex Mason	Labour	1946, 1949, 1951, 1954, 1957, 1960	1963	contested New Lynn instead
Martyn Finlay	Labour	1963, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1975	1978	retired
Ralph Maxwell	Labour	1978, 1981	1990	electorate abolished, elected in Titirangi
Brian Neeson	National	1993	1996	contested Waipareira instead
Marie Hasler	National	1996	1999	contested, and lost, Titirangi instead
Brian Neeson	National	1999	2002	contested Helensville as an independent
Lynne Pillay	Labour	2002, 2005	2008	defeated
Paula Bennett	National	2008		Incumbent

List MPs

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

Name	Party	First Elected	Left Office	Contested Waitakere
Jonathan Hunt1	Labour	1969	30 March 2005	1999
Paula Bennett	National	2005	Current MP	2005 (lose), 2008 (win), 2011 (win)
Lynne Pillay	Labour	2002	26 November 2011	2002 (win), 2005 (win), 2008 (lose)

Election results

2011 election

Due to the closeness of the election in Waitakere a judicial recount was undertaken on 16 December and it was confirmed that Bennett has beaten Sepuloni by nine votes on 17 December.

General Election 2011: Waitakere
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	%	±%
	National	Y Paula Bennett		13,465	44.74	-0.16	12,533	40.27	-0.95
	Labour	Carmel Sepuloni		13,456	44.71	+1.88	11,579	37.21	-2.57
	Green	Stephen Tollestrup		1,855	6.16	+0.67	3,308	10.63	+4.16
	Conservative	Danny Mountain		611	2.03	+2.03	753	2.42	+2.42
	Legalise Cannabis	Jeff Lye		331	1.10	+1.10	166	0.53	+0.01
	Mana	Sue Bradford		322	1.06	+1.06	174	0.56	+0.56
	Libertarianz	Peter Osborne		55	0.18	+0.18	33	0.11	+0.06
	NZ First						2,011	6.46	+2.91
	ACT						259	0.83	-2.56
	Māori						168	0.54	-0.23
	United Future						125	0.40	-0.31
	Alliance						9	0.03	-0.10
	Democrats						4	0.01	-0.01
Informal votes				652			300
Total Valid votes				30,095			31,122
	National hold		Majority	9	0.03	-2.04

Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 43,143

2008 election

General Election 2008: Waitakere
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	%	±%
	National	Paula Bennett		13,704	44.90	+11.83	12,952	41.22	+7.05
	Labour	N Lynne Pillay		13,072	42.83	-5.98	12,498	39.77	-6.88
	Green	Gary Stewart		1,676	5.49	+0.05	2,032	6.47	+0.54
	NZ First	Craig McNair		597	1.96	-2.36	1,117	3.55	-2.07
	ACT	John G Riddell		482	1.58	+0.25	1,067	3.40	+2.07
	Pacific	Fia Misa Tupou		448	1.47	+1.47	398	1.27	+1.27
	Family Party	Michael Kidd		358	1.17	+1.17	136	0.43	+0.43
	Independent	Rita Beckmannflay		107	0.35	+0.35
	Alliance	Sandra Ethell		78	0.26	+0.06	42	0.13	+0.02
	Māori						241	0.77	+0.10
	Progressive						225	0.72	-0.44
	United Future						224	0.71	-2.23
	Bill and Ben						168	0.53	+0.53
	Legalise Cannabis						166	0.53	+0.26
	Kiwi						106	0.34	+0.34
	Workers Party						15	0.05	+0.05
	Libertarianz						14	0.04	+0.02
	RAM						10	0.03	+0.03
	Democrats						7	0.02	+0.004
	RONZ						5	0.02	±0.00
Informal votes				300			149
Total Valid votes				30,522			31,423
	National gain from Labour		Majority	632	2.07	+17.81

2005 election

General election 2005: Waitakare
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	%	±%
	Labour	Y Lynne Pillay		15,325	48.81	+10.42	14,988	46.65
	National	Paula Bennett		10,383	33.07	+13.41	10,976	34.16
	Green	David Clendon		1709	5.44		1903	5.92
	NZ First	Brendon Stewart		1354	4.31		1806	5.62
	United Future	Hannah Baral		1035	3.30		944	2.94
	ACT	John Riddell		416	1.33		427	1.33
	Destiny	Stan Green		394	1.25		227	0.71
	Progressive	David Parkyn		293	0.93		370	1.15
	Māori	Charles Joe		272	0.87		213	0.66
	Direct Democracy	Alona Covich		79	0.25		33	0.10
	Family Rights	John Ulberg		74	0.24		28	0.09
	Alliance	Sandra Ethell		62	0.20	-27.37	36	0.11
	Legalise Cannabis	-					87	0.27
	Christian Heritage	-					58	0.18
	Libertarianz	-					8	0.02
	99 MP	-					7	0.02
	Democrats	-					6	0.02
	One NZ	-					5	0.02
	RONZ	-					5	0.02
Informal votes				271			127
Total Valid votes				31,396			32,127
	Labour hold		Majority	4942	15.74	+7.08

External links

• Electorate Profile Parliamentary Library