Te Atatu (New Zealand electorate)

Te Atatū (before 2008 styled 'te Atatu' 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 Te Atatū is Chris Carter [ [http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/MPP/MPs/MPs/7/3/5/48MP30501-Carter-Chris.htm New Zealand Parliament - Chris Carter MP] ] of the Labour Party. He first held this position from 1993 to 1996 and again since 1999.

Te Atatū is comprised of the suburbs of Waitakere City on the western side of the Whau River in Auckland. The main parts of the seat are the suburbs of Glendene, Te Atatu, Lincoln and Massey. Boundary changes in the leadup to the 2008 election have seen the northern boundary edge northwards to include Massey East, with a small southern block transferred to the neighbouring Waitakere seat.

The makeup of Te Atatū shows that while its population is composed roughly inline with the national average: It is roughly the same ages as the nation (with slightly more residents over fifty), and its average income ($22627) is only slightly lower than the rest of New Zealand. Its main point of demographic difference with its country is ethnic - it has more Asian New Zealanders and more Pacific Islanders than the rest of the country.

History

The first Te Atatū seat was created ahead of the 1978 election by pulling apart the seat of Waitemata; its first MP was future cabinet minister Dr Michael Bassett, who had been the MP for Waitemata from 1972 until 1975 before an anti-labour landslide cost him his job. Basset held the seat until his retirement in 1990, when a toxic battle to succeed Bassett in an aready lean year for Labour passed one of their safe seats into the hands of Brian Neeson. Neeson himself never represented the same seat twice in succession, (having jumped ship to Waitakere in 1993, Waipareia in 1996, to a new, larger Waitakere seat in 1999 before being denied the chance to contest Helensville in 2002), and his departure in 1993, coupled with a reversal of electoral fortune for the National Party (down from 47.8 to 35.1 percent) lead to a victory for incoming Labour MP Chris Carter. In his first three years in Parliament, Carter made news for being the first openly gay member of Parliament.

With the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional voting in 1996, Te Atatū was scrapped in favour of a new seat called Waipareira, which covered the same area as Te Atatū, but also included the wealthy harbourside suburbs to the north of the seat. Neeson and Carter were rematched, and Neeson was victorious by under a thousand votes, helped by the presence of former Labour MP for West Auckland turned New Zealand First candidate Jack Elder, whose appearance on the ballot paper undermined Carter's chances and handed the seat to Neeson by under a thousand votes.

Three years later, Te Atatu was re-established, with the new seat focused more on the working class suburbs at the southern end of Waitakere City and Carter had no such trouble using the seat to springboard back into Parliament. Since then, because the electoral climate has favoured Labour, Carter and his party have dominated the seat, winning at least 49 percent of the candidate and list vote at both of the post 2002 elections.

Members of Parliament for Te Atatū

sourced from [http://2005.electionresults.govt.nz/electorate-53.html electionresults.govt.nz]

References

External links

* [http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/6F3F94F4-8126-474B-BB0B-11FC627C2F11/204/Te_Atatu1.pdf Electorate Profile] "Parliamentary Library"