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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Members of Parliament for Waitakere

[edit] List MPs from Waitakere

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.

[edit] Election results

[edit] 2008 election

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

[edit] 2005 election

General election 2005: Waitakare[2]
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	%	±%
	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
	NZ 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

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Electorate Profile Parliamentary Library

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