Taupō (New Zealand electorate)

Taupō (before 2008 styled as 'Taupo' with no macron) is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The current MP for Taupō is Mark Burton of the Labour Party. He has held this position since 1996.

The current Taupō seat was created ahead of the introduction to Mixed Member Proportional voting in 1996. It is a merger of the old marginal seat of Tongariro with the western half of the safe National seat of Waikaremoana. It, and all its descendents are centred around Taupo district and its main towns of Taupo, Turangi and Mangakino, with the South Waikato District towns of Tokoroa, Tirau and Putaruru. Before 2008, the electorate pulled south to take in the northern and western parts of Ruapehu District (now annexed by Rangitīkei), namely Taumarunui, Raetihi and Ohakune. With the sweeping changes wrought by the boundary review conducted after the 2006 census, low population growth in the south-central North Island coupled with high population growth in and around Auckland has meant Cambridge has been moved out of the now defunct seat of Piako and into Taupō.

Taupō has twice returned its incumbent Mark Burton with a majority of around a thousand - in 1996, when Labour's post-1990 fortunes were at their lowest and New Zealand First went on to take a large bite out of their vote; and again in 2005, when National consolidated the centre-right vote, and at the same time won 2,000 more party votes than Burton's Labour party. At the other two MMP elections, Burton was safely returned, thanks in part to a heavy disenchantment with the National Party among its formerly loyal voters. Burton will have an even harder time escaping the political climate in 2008, given the dominance of the National Party in Cambridge, which will contribute over ten thousand new voters to the seat.

In an historical sense, the name can refer to a seat contested between 1963 and 1981. The seat referred to here was much smaller, because it did not contain the western side of Lake Taupo, nor Cambridge, nor the Ruapehu towns. It was as marginal as the seat that would be reclaimed fifteen years later, returning four one-term MPs in succession before its abolition.

Members of Parliament for Taupō

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

Election results

Note: lines coloured beige denote the winner of the electorate vote. Lines coloured pink denote a candidate elected to Parliament from their party's list.

=2005 election=

sourced from [http://2005.electionresults.govt.nz/electorate-51.html electionresults.govt.nz]

External links

* [http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/FE14B68A-E00F-4C4F-BEAD-C90ABAAB1A62/200/Taupo1.pdf Electorate Profile] "Parliamentary Library"