- Christchurch Central
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This article is about the Christchurch Central electorate. For the Christchurch central city suburb, see Christchurch Central City.
Map showing extent of electorate for the 2008 and 2011 elections
Christchurch Central is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate in the South Island city of Christchurch. The electorate was established for the 1946 election and has always been won by the Labour Party. Since 2008, the incumbent is Brendon Burns.
Contents
Geographic coverage
The electorate covers Christchurch Central City, Addington, Shirley, Richmond, and Hagley.[citation needed]
History
The Christchurch Central electorate was created in 1946,[1] and is a safe Labour seat; National has not won it in any form at any point since the electorate's establishment, though a high turnout for the Alliance did see Tim Barnett's 1996 majority come in at under a thousand. The incumbent, Brendon Burns, had a majority in the 2008 election of also just under one thousand.[2]
The first representative was Robert Macfarlane, who had earlier represented the Christchurch South electorate. He held Christchurch Central until the 1969 election, when he retired. He was succeeded by Bruce Barclay, who died in office in 1979. This caused the 18 August 1979 by-election, which was won by Geoffrey Palmer. Palmer would eventually go on to become Prime Minister.[3]
Palmer retired at the 1990 election and was succeeded by Lianne Dalziel. At the 1996 election, i.e. with the advent of MMP, Dalziel did not contest an electorate but stood as a list candidate only. Tim Barnett succeeded her and held the electorate until the 2008 election, when he retired. Brendon Burns succeeded Barnett and is the incumbent.
Members of Parliament for Christchurch Central
Christchurch Central has been represented by six Labour Party MPs:
Key Labour
List MPs from Christchurch Central
Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Christchurch Central electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs' terms began and ended at general elections.
Name Party First Elected Left Office Contested Christchurch Central Liz Gordon Alliance 1996 2002 1996, 1999, 2002 Nicky Wagner National 2005 Current MP 2002, 2005, 2008 Election results
2008 election
General Election 2008: Christchurch Central[4] 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
or 
denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.Party Candidate Votes % ±% Party Votes % ±% Labour Brendon Burns 14,078 43.83 -8.74 12,999 39.36 -8.95 National Nicky Wagner 13,143 40.92 11.65 12,409 37.58 +7.07 Green Jan McLauchlan 2,708 8.43 +1.78 3,688 11.17 +1.47 Progressive Somnath Bagchi 598 1.86 -1.34 697 2.11 +0.25 Legalise Cannabis Michael Britnell 487 1.52 - 187 0.57 +0.20 ACT Toni Severin 482 1.50 +0.49 897 2.72 +1.66 Kiwi Andrew Beaven 353 1.10 - 218 0.66 - Workers Party Byron Clark[5] 164 0.51 +0.24 33 0.10 Alliance Greg Kleis 103 0.32 - 41 0.12 +0.01 NZ First - 1,036 3.14 -0.90 United Future - 239 0.72 -2.32 Māori - 230 0.70 0.36 Bill and Ben - 187 0.57 - Family Party - 87 0.26 - Pacific - 31 0.09 - Libertarianz - 21 0.06 +0.04 Democrats - 16 0.05 +0.00 RONZ - 5 0.02 +0.00 RAM - 2 0.01 - Informal votes 306 119 Total Valid votes 32,116 33,023 Labour hold Majority 935 2.91 -20.38 2005 election
The table below shows the results of the 2005 general election.[6] 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.
Party Candidate Votes % Party Votes % Labour Tim Barnett17,685 52.57 16,652 48.31 National Nicky Wagner 9,849 29.28 10,515 30.51 Green Natalie Cutler-Welsh 2,236 6.65 3,342 9.70 NZ First Kevin Gardener 1,022 3.04 1,391 4.04 Progressive Megan Woods 1,077 3.20 643 1.87 United John van Buren 761 2.26 1,048 3.04 ACT Shirley Marshall 340 1.01 364 1.06 Destiny Anita Breach 338 1.01 144 0.42 Māori Party Darryl Gregory 188 0.56 116 0.34 Anti-Capitalist Byron Clark 90 0.27 Communist Annalucia Vermunt 53 0.16 ALCP - - - 125 0.36 Alliance - - - 40 0.12 Christian Heritage - - - 37 0.11 Democrats - - - 15 0.04 99 MP - - - 10 0.03 Libertarianz - - - 9 0.03 Direct Democracy - - - 7 0.02 Republic of NZ - - - 5 0.01 Family Rights PP - - - 4 0.01 One NZ - - - 2 0.01 informal votes 410 193 total valid votes 33,639 34,469 Labour hold Majority 7,836 1979 by-election
Christchurch Central by-election, 1979 Party Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Geoffrey Palmer 6,149 64.20% Social Credit Terry Heffernan 1,759 18.37% National D P Duncan 1,634 17.06% Tory S A Sadler 26 0.27% Economic Euthenics Party Michael Hansen 10 0.10% Majority 4,390 45.83% Turnout 9,578 Labour hold Swing Unknown References
- ^ Scholefield, Guy Hardy (1950) [First ed. published 1913]. New Zealand parliamentary record, 1840-1949. Wellington: Govt. Printer. p. 156.
- ^ New Zealand Parliament — Brendon Burns MP
- ^ "Geoffrey Palmer". Ministry for Culture and Heritage. updated 9 July 2010. http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/people/geoffrey-palmer. Retrieved 19 November 2011.
- ^ election result Christchurch Central
- ^ Byron Clark contested the seat in the 2005 election for the same party, which was then called the Anti-Capitalist Alliance.
- ^ "Official Count Results -- Christchurch Central". Chief Electoral Office, Wellington. http://2005.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2005/electorate-5.html. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
External links
- Electorate Profile — 2005, Parliamentary Library
- Electorate Profile — 2008, Parliamentary Library
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Māori Categories:- 1946 establishments
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