Botany is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. It was contested for the first time at the 2008 general election, and won by Pansy Wong for the National Party.

Botany was created after the 2006 Census due to high population growth in and around Auckland, and is one of several sweeping changes to the electoral landscape of South Auckland - the southern end of Port Waikato was lanced and combined with the area around Clevedon township to create Hunua; the resultant change pulled the Clevedon electorate tighter around the city of Papakura for which the seat is now named. In the north, Manukau East was pulled up through Otahuhu into Auckland City, in the process dropping the western suburbs of Flat Bush, East Tamaki, Dannemora and Botany Downs, which were combined with fragments of the Clevedon and Pakuranga electorates to create Botany.

Demographically, Botany is older than the rest of New Zealand, with over half of its population aged over 30; It has three times as many Chinese New Zealanders than the national average (33.5 versus 9.2%), and nearly twice as many Pacific Islanders (13 to 7%), which makes Botany a minority-majority seat. Botany has the highest number of people born overseas of any New Zealand electorate (49% in 2006), the most Buddhists in a New Zealand electorate and the highest number of one-family homes. The average income in the seat is high, with over half of the seats residents earning over $50,000 a year.

A 2005 academic survey assessing the voting behaviour of Asian New Zealanders^[1] showed a strong preference for the Labour Party, with a sizeable proportion prepared to vote for the National Party (47 to 40); it also showed that among Asian New Zealanders, the most important issues were the economy and law and order. This was demonstrated by a large anti-crime march (a crowd of 15,000 was estimated, with a significant number of these being Asian New Zealanders) was held in Auckland (on the streets of Botany) in July 2008 amidst claims of increasing violent crime in New Zealand targeted against its Asian population.^[2] The march's organiser Peter Low used his website to clarify his position, calling for harsher sentencing, victims' rights and zero "criminal rights".^[3]

Both National and the ACT party stood Chinese New Zealanders as their candidates in 2008 - Pansy Wong and Kenneth Wang respectively. Labour chose Koro Tawa, an Auckland University lecturer. Raymond Huo, a Chinese-speaking lawyer, was initially mooted for the Labour nomination, but eventually chose to stand as a list-only candidate.^[4][5]

Contents 1 Members of Parliament for Botany 2 Election results 2.1 2008 election 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Members of Parliament for Botany

Name	Party	Elected	Left Office	Reason
Pansy Wong	National	2008	incumbent

[edit] Election results

[edit] 2008 election

General Election 2008: Botany[6]
Notes: Green background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party Votes	%	±%
	National	Pansy Wong		17,382	56.22		19,355	61.25
	Labour	Koro Tawa		6,510	21.06		7,958	25.18
	ACT	Kenneth Wang		4,717	15.26		1,528	4.84
	Green	Peter Cooper		1,226	3.97		756	2.39
	United Future	Judy Carter		428	1.38		220	0.70
	Progressive	Racheal Cheam		304	0.98		217	0.69
	Kiwi	Simon Kan		212	0.69		125	0.40
	Independent	Raj Subramanian		140	0.45
	NZ First	-					678	2.15
	Pacific	-					295	0.93
	Family Party	-					166	0.53
	Bill and Ben	-					98	0.31
	Māori	-					98	0.31
	Legalise Cannabis	-					62	0.20
	Workers Party	-					13	0.04
	Libertarianz	-					10	0.03
	Alliance	-					8	0.03
	RONZ	-					7	0.02
	RAM	-					6	0.02
	NZ Democrats	-					2	0.01
Informal votes				386			131
Total Valid votes				30,919			31,602
	National win new seat		Majority	10,872	35.16

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Electorate Profile Parliamentary Library

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