Botany (New Zealand electorate)

Botany is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. It will be contested for the first time at the 2008 general election.

Botany was created after the 2006 Census due to high population growth in and around Auckland, and is one of several sweeping changes to the electoral landscape of South Auckland - the southern end of Port Waikato was lanced and combined with the area around Clevedon township to create Hunua; the resultant change pulled the Clevedon electorate tighter around the city of Papakura for which the seat is now named. In the north, Manukau East was pulled up through Otahuhu into Auckland City, in the process dropping the western suburbs of Flat Bush, East Tamaki, Dannemora and Botany Downs, which were combined with fragments of the Clevedon and Pakuranga electorates to create Botany.

Demographically, Botany is older than the rest of New Zealand, with over half of its population aged over 30; It has three times as many Chinese New Zealanders than the national average (33.5 versus 9.2%), and nearly twice as many Pacific Islanders (13 to 7%), which makes Botany a minority-majority seat. Botany has the highest number of people born overseas of any New Zealand electorate (49% in 2006), the most Buddhists in a New Zealand electorate and the highest number of one-family homes. The average income in the seat is high, with over half of the seats residents earning over $50,000 a year.

A 2005 academic survey assessing the voting behaviour of Asian New Zealanders [cite web|url=http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3406/features/4538/asian_vote.html |work=New Zealand Listener | title=Asian Vote|date=2004-08-20] showed a strong preference for the Labour Party, with a sizeable proportion prepared to vote for the National Party (47 to 40); it also showed that among Asian New Zealanders, the most important issues were the economy and law and order. This was demonstrated by a large anti-crime march (a crowd of 15,000 was estimated, with a significant number of these being Asian New Zealanders) was held in Auckland (on the streets of Botany) in July 2008 amidst claims of increasing violent crime in New Zealand targeted against its Asian population. [cite web|url=http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/423466/1889878 |work=TVNZ News | title=Huge turnout for anti-crime march|date=2004-07-05] The march's organiser Peter Low used his website to clarify his position, calling for harsher sentencing, victims' rights and zero "criminal rights". [cite web|url=http://www.aag.org.nz/ |work=Asian Anti-Crime Group Trust | title=ASIAN ANTI-CRIME GROUP (AAG) TRUST NEW ZEALAND|date=2004-08-05]

Both National and the ACT party are standing Chinese New Zealanders as their candidates in 2008 - Pansy Wong and Kenneth Wang respectively. Labour has chosen Koro Tawa, an Auckland University lecturer.

References

External links

* [http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/D9A772E5-E318-49AF-99EB-A51207A2C3FE/77736/Botany_profile_1.pdf Electorate Profile] "Parliamentary Library"