Ōhariu

Ōhariu is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. It was contested for the first time at the 2008 election. It is the successor to Ohariu-Belmont, first contested at the first Mixed Member Proportional election in 1996. Through its existence Ohariu-Belmont was represented by Peter Dunne, leader of the United Future party. Dunne contested and won the new electorate in 2008.

The boundaries of the two electorates are near identical except for the removal of the eponymous Lower Hutt suburb of Belmont into the Rimutaka seat and the addition of Crofton Downs from Wellington Central. The new electorate contains the section of Wellington City between Crofton Downs and southern Tawa, including Ngaio, Khandallah, Johnsonville and Newlands. The rest of the electorate consists of Lower Hutt's hill suburbs of Korokoro, Maungaraki and Normandale. Ōhariu is one of 11 electorate names to include a macron, for the first time.

Both Ohariu-Belmont and Ōhariu are young, white and wealthy; it has the largest number of 30-49-year-olds in the country, and the highest number of families earning between $70,000 and $100,000 per year. 80% of its population is New Zealand European, 10% Asian and 6% Māori.^[1]

Despite Dunne having a 7,702 vote majority in Ohariu-Belmont at the 2005 election,^[2] United's performance was less impressive. In 2005 it won just 5.6% of the party vote (down from 13.0% in 2002) in an electorate dominated by the big two parties: National came out on top in the party vote with 43.1%, beating Labour by 3.6%, having been reduced to 24.4% three years earlier.^[3]

Historically Ohariu (without a macron) was an electorate based around north and western Wellington, contested between 1978 and 1990. A substantial redrawing of Wellington's boundaries ahead of the last First Past the Post election in 1993 led to Ohariu being divided between Wellington-Karori and the new electorate of Onslow. Dunne, then a member of the Labour Party, was the MP for the old Ohariu between 1984 until its abolition, and won Onslow in 1993.

Members of Parliament

Election	Winner
1978 election		Hugh Templeton (National)
1981 election
1984 election		Peter Dunne (Labour)
1987 election
1990 election
Electorate abolished, Dunne contested Onslow instead
2008 election		Peter Dunne (United Future)1

¹Dunne defected to United New Zealand in 1995.

Election results

2008 election

General Election 2008: Ōhariu[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 Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party Votes	%	±%
	United Future	Y Peter Dunne		12,303	32.61	-	843	2.21
	Labour	Charles Chauvel		11,297	29.95	-	12,728	33.33
	National	Katrina Shanks		10,009	26.53	-	17,670	46.27
	Green	Gareth Hughes		2,665	7.06	-	3,488	9.13
	Kiwi	Joel Sison		522	1.38	-	283	0.74
	ACT	Colin du Plessis		487	1.29	-	1,304	3.41
	Legalise Cannabis	Danyl Strype		330	0.87	-	119	0.31
	Alliance	Kelly Buchanan		111	0.29	-	55	0.14
	NZ First	-					798	2.09	-
	Māori	-					278	0.73	-
	Progressive	-					273	0.71	-
	Bill and Ben	-					208	0.54	-
	Family Party	-					65	0.17	-
	Pacific	-					22	0.06	-
	Libertarianz	-					20	0.05	-
	Workers Party	-					11	0.03	-
	Democrats	-					9	0.02	-
	RAM	-					7	0.02	-
	RONZ	-					7	0.02	-
Informal votes				242			88
Total Valid votes				37,724			38,188
	United Future win new seat		Majority	1,006

References

1. ^ - New Zealand Parliament Electorate Profiles: Ohariu-Belmont
2. ^ election result Ohariu-Belmont 2005
3. ^ election result Ohariu-Belmont 2002
4. ^ 2008 election results