Waitakere (New Zealand electorate)

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 Lynne Pillay [ [http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/MPP/MPs/MPs/5/a/0/48MP77941-Pillay-Lynne.htm New Zealand Parliament - Lynne Pillay MP] ] of the Labour Party. She has held this position since the 2002 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 bulled 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.

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 the current MP for Waitakere, 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.

Members of Parliament for Waitakere

sourced from [http://2005.electionresults.govt.nz/electorate-57.html electionresults.govt.nz]

References

External links

* [http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/DDFCB14A-93B4-425D-A8ED-D3A54F76726C/220/Waitakere1.pdf Electorate Profile] "Parliamentary Library"