Clutha-Southland

Clutha Southland shown as part of the lower South Island

Clutha-Southland is a parliamentary constituency returning one member to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The current MP for Clutha Southland is Bill English of the National Party. He has held this position since 1996.

Description

Clutha-Southland was promulgated as one of the original 65 MMP electorates, centered on Southland district and covering an area stretching from Fiordland across the far south of the South Island to the south Otago coast. Its largest population centres are Gore and Balclutha. In 2008, the seat of Otago was abolished and split between the Waitaki and Clutha-Southland electorates, and parts of Central Otago, primarily around Arrowtown, Queenstown and Roxburgh were also transferred to Clutha-Southland.

Clutha-Southland is the successor to the old Wallace, Clutha and Awarua constituencies. Its boundaries have changed at all three redistributions undertaken since its creation, as dwindling populations in both the old Clutha-Southland electorate and in the neighbouring Invercargill electorate have forced both seats northwards to ensure every electorate population stays within certain limits.

Because of its largely rural nature, Clutha-Southland is one of the National Party's safest seats; it has only ever had one MP, that being current deputy Prime Minister, Bill English, who was also the MP for Wallace from 1990-96.

Members of Parliament for Clutha-Southland

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

Name	Party	Elected	Left Office	Reason
Bill English	National	1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008	incumbent

Election results

2008 election

General Election 2008: Clutha-Southland[1]
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 Bill English		22,631	67.87	+1.39	20,235	59.87	+2.73
	Labour	Don Pryde		7,156	21.46	-1.74	8,091	23.94	-4.76
	Green	Tim Gow		2,304	6.91	+4.23	1,726	5.11	+2.74
	ACT	Roly Henderson		590	1.77	+0.18	1,315	3.89	+1.98
	Family Party	Paul Tankard		515	1.54	-	193	0.57	-
	Alliance	Marvin Hubbard		149	0.45	-	63	0.19	+0.11
	NZ First	-					968	2.86	-1.70
	Bill and Ben	-					259	0.77	-
	United Future	-					254	0.75	-2.64
	Progressive	-					226	0.67	-0.09
	Māori	-					141	0.42	-0.21
	Legalise Cannabis	-					131	0.39	+0.13
	Kiwi	-					131	0.39	-
	Democrats	-					18	0.05	-0.03
	Workers Party	-					18	0.05	-
	Libertarianz	-					16	0.05	-0.02
	Pacific	-					8	0.02	-
	RAM	-					4	0.01	-
	RONZ	-					2	0.01	-0.00
Informal votes				354			142
Total Valid votes				33,345			33,799
	National hold		Majority	15,475	46.41	+3.14

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

Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Party Votes	%
National	Y Bill English	20020	66.70	17334	57.14
Labour	David Talbot	6988	23.28	8705	28.70
NZ First	Dave Mackie	999	3.33	1386	4.57
Green	Robert Guyton	808	2.69	719	2.37
United	Joy Leitze	701	2.34	1028	3.39
ACT	John Cameron Fraser	479	1.60	579	1.91
IND	David Webber	121	0.40	-	-
Progressive	-	-	-	230	0.76
Destiny	-	-	-	99	0.33
ALCP	-	-	-	79	0.26
Māori Party	-	-	-	63	0.21
Democrats	-	-	-	26	0.09
Christian Heritage	-	-	-	24	0.08
Alliance	-	-	-	23	0.08
99 MP	-	-	-	13	0.04
Family Rights PP	-	-	-	9	0.03
Libertarianz	-	-	-	7	0.02
One NZ	-	-	-	6	0.02
Republic of NZ	-	-	-	3	0.01
Direct Democracy	-	-	-	2	0.01
informal votes		211		150
total valid votes		30116		30335
National hold	Majority	13,032

sourced from electionresults.govt.nz

References

1. ^ Official Count Results -- Clutha-Southland, 2008 General Election. Chief Electoral Office, Wellington. Retrieved 23 September 2010.