Epsom (New Zealand electorate) Information & Epsom (New Zealand electorate) Links at HealthHaven.com

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 Rodney Hide MP of the ACT Party.^[1] He has held this position since 2005.

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 European^[2], and has an average income high above the national average. Epsom was created ahead of the first Mixed Member Proportional 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.

[edit] History

The Epsom seat was first contested in New Zealand's first Mixed Member Proportional 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 1900 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.

[edit] Members of Parliament for Epsom

Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and started at general elections.

Name	Party	Elected	Left Office	Reason
Christine Fletcher	National	1996	1999	elected Mayor of Auckland
Richard Worth	National	1999, 2002	2005	defeated
Rodney Hide	ACT	2005, 2008	incumbent

[edit] List MPs from Epsom

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.

Name	Party	First Elected	Left Office	Contested Epsom
Helen Duncan	Labour	1998	2005	1996
Richard Worth	National	1999	June 2009	1999 (won) 2002 (won) 2005 (lost), 2008 (lost)
Rodney Hide	ACT	1996	current MP	2002 (lost) 2005 (won) 2008 (won)
Keith Locke	Green	1999	current MP	2002, 2005, 2008

[edit] Election results

[edit] 2008 election

General Election 2008: Epsom^[3]
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	%	±%
	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	-
	NZ 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

[edit] 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

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Electorate Profile Parliamentary Library

[0] New Zealand Parliament - Rodney Hide MP

[1] Epsom Electorate Profile: People

[2] 2008 election results

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[2]

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