Upper Harbour (New Zealand electorate)
| Upper Harbour | |
|---|---|
| Single-member constituency for the New Zealand House of Representatives | |
 Location of Upper Harbourwithin Auckland | |
| Region | Auckland |
| Current constituency | |
| Current MP | Cameron Brewer |
| Party | National |
| List MP | Karen Chhour (ACT) |
Upper Harbour is a parliamentary electorate in Auckland that returns one member to the New Zealand House of Representatives. It was first formed for the 2014 election. The seat was won by National's Paula Bennett in both the 2014 and 2017 election. The seat was then held by Labour's Vanushi Walters in the 2020 election. The seat is currently held by National's Cameron Brewer since the 2023 general election.
Geography
Upper Harbour covers the northwestern reaches of Waitematā Harbour. It stretches from Massey, in West Auckland, through West Harbour and Hobsonville, and across to Greenhithe and on to Glenfield and Unsworth Heights on the North Shore.[1][2]
History
Upper Harbour was proposed in the 2013/14 electorate boundary review and confirmed by the Electoral Commission on 17 April 2014.[3] The 2013 census showed that the Auckland region had seen faster population growth than other areas, so needed an extra electorate to keep all electorates within five percent of their quota. To achieve this, the Electoral Commission abolished Waitakere and established two new electorates, Upper Harbour and Kelston.[3] A small portion of the electorate around Tihema Stream was moved to the new electorate of Kaipara ki Mahurangi in the 2020 redistribution.[4]
When the draft changes to electorate boundaries were first announced, the incumbent of the Waitakere electorate, Paula Bennett, was quick to announce that she would stand in Upper Harbour instead. This was to prevent Colin Craig of the Conservative Party making a claim for the electorate, as at the time, there was speculation whether the National Party would make a deal with the Conservatives for a safe seat in line with the agreement with ACT New Zealand in the Epsom electorate.[5] Bennett won the 2014 election with a majority of nearly 10,000 votes over Labour's Hermann Retzlaff.[6]
At the 2020 election Bennett retired and Labour's Vanushi Walters won the seat against National’s Jake Bezzant.[7] This was one of fifteen electorates that Labour took from National in an election that dramatically changed the composition of New Zealand’s parliament.[8]
Members of Parliament
Unless otherwise stated, all MPs' terms began and ended at general elections.
| Election | Winner | |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 election | Paula Bennett | |
| 2017 election | ||
| 2020 election | Vanushi Walters | |
| 2023 election | Cameron Brewer | |
List MPs
Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Upper Harbour electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs' terms began and ended at general elections.
Key ACT
| Election | Winner | |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 election | Karen Chhour | |
| 2023 election | ||
Election results
 | This article needs to be updated. (March 2024) |
2020 election
| 2020 general election: Upper Harbour[9] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notes: |
Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote.
| ||||||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Party votes | % | ±% | ||
| Labour | Vanushi Walters | 17,573 | 43.64 | +14.89 | 19,507 | 47.97 | +15.66 | ||
| National | Jake Bezzant | 15,181 | 37.70 | -17.73 | 12,675 | 31.17 | -22.86 | ||
| Green | Ryan Nicholls | 2,488 | 6.17 | -1.33 | 2,151 | 5.29 | +1.22 | ||
| ACT | Karen Chhour | 1,712 | 4.25 | +3.25 | 3,066 | 7.54 | +6.87 | ||
| New Conservative | Bernadette Soares | 1,265 | 3.14 | — | 752 | 1.84 | +1.45 | ||
| TEA | Winson Tan | 410 | 1.01 | — | 136 | 0.33 | — | ||
| Advance NZ | Peter Vaughan | 309 | 0.76 | — | 256 | 0.62 | — | ||
| Outdoors | Catherine Giorza | 157 | 0.38 | — | 22 | 0.05 | +0.02 | ||
| Sustainable NZ | Dion Thomas | 127 | 0.31 | — | 46 | 0.11 | — | ||
| NZ First | 797 | 1.96 | -3.77 | ||||||
| Opportunities | 559 | 1.37 | -0.27 | ||||||
| Legalise Cannabis | 157 | 0.38 | +0.14 | ||||||
| Māori Party | 144 | 0.35 | +0.04 | ||||||
| ONE | 81 | 0.19 | — | ||||||
| Vision NZ | 20 | 0.04 | — | ||||||
| Social Credit | 5 | 0.01 | -0.01 | ||||||
| Heartland | 5 | 0.01 | — | ||||||
| Informal votes | 1,042 | 281 | |||||||
| Total valid votes | 40,264 | 40,660 | |||||||
| Turnout | 40,660 | ||||||||
| Labour gain from National | Majority | 2,392 | 5.94 | -20.73 | |||||
2017 election
| 2017 general election: Upper Harbour[10] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notes: |
Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote.
| ||||||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Party votes | % | ±% | ||
| National |  Paula Bennett
|
19,857 | 55.43 | -0.52 | 19,722 | 54.03 | -0.22 | ||
| Labour | Jin An | 10,301 | 28.75 | +2.41 | 11,793 | 32.31 | +8.95 | ||
| Green | James Goodhue | 2,688 | 7.5 | -0.5 | 1,484 | 4.07 | -2.9 | ||
| NZ First | Jane Johnston | 2,192 | 6.12 | — | 2,092 | 5.73 | -1.18 | ||
| ACT | Bruce Haycock | 358 | 1 | -0.67 | 246 | 0.67 | -0.76 | ||
| Opportunities | 597 | 1.64 | — | ||||||
| Conservative | 144 | 0.39 | -4.43 | ||||||
| Māori Party | 112 | 0.31 | -0.44 | ||||||
| Legalise Cannabis | 88 | 0.24 | -0.14 | ||||||
| People's Party | 25 | 0.07 | — | ||||||
| Mana | 24 | 0.07 | -0.78[a] | ||||||
| United Future | 21 | 0.06 | -0.14 | ||||||
| Internet | 14 | 0.04 | -0.81[b] | ||||||
| Outdoors | 11 | 0.03 | — | ||||||
| Ban 1080 | 9 | 0.02 | -0.01 | ||||||
| Democrats | 6 | 0.02 | +0.01 | ||||||
| Informal votes | 429 | 114 | |||||||
| Total valid votes | 35,825 | 36,502 | |||||||
| National hold | Majority | 9,556 | 26.67 | -2.94 | |||||
2014 election
| 2014 general election: Upper Harbour[6] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notes: |
Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote.
| ||||||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Party votes | % | ±% | ||
| National | Paula Bennett | 18,315 | 55.95 | — | 20,853 | 54.25 | — | ||
| Labour | Hermann Retzlaff | 8,623 | 26.34 | — | 4,965 | 23.36 | — | ||
| Green | Nicholas Mayne | 2,619 | 8.00 | — | 2,329 | 6.97 | — | ||
| Conservative | Callum Blair | 1,839 | 5.61 | — | 1,613 | 4.82 | — | ||
| ACT | Stephen Berry | 549 | 1.67 | — | 450 | 1.34 | — | ||
| Māori Party | Hinurewa Te Hau | 246 | 0.75 | — | 119 | 0.35 | — | ||
| Mana Party | Makelesi Ngata | 204 | 0.62 | — | |||||
| NZ First | 2,311 | 6.91 | — | ||||||
| Internet Mana | 432 | 0.85 | — | ||||||
| Legalise Cannabis | 129 | 0.38 | — | ||||||
| United Future | 69 | 0.20 | — | ||||||
| Civilian | 14 | 0.04 | — | ||||||
| Ban 1080 | 13 | 0.03 | — | ||||||
| Independent Coalition | 7 | 0.02 | — | ||||||
| Focus | 4 | 0.01 | — | ||||||
| Democrats | 4 | 0.01 | — | ||||||
| Informal votes | 338 | 130 | |||||||
| Total valid votes | 32,733 | 33,403 | |||||||
| Turnout | 33,420 | 73.42[11] | — | ||||||
| National win new seat | Majority | 9,692 | 29.61 | ||||||
Notes
References
- ^ McQuillan, Laura; Marwick, Felix (21 November 2013). "Sweeping changes to electorates". Newstalk ZB. Archived from the original on 13 January 2014. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
- ^ "Election 2020: Human rights lawyer Vanushi Walters is new Upper Harbour MP". Stuff. 17 October 2020. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
- ^ a b "New electorate boundaries finalised". Electoral Commission. 2014. Retrieved 19 April 2014.
- ^ "Report of the Representation Commission 2020" (PDF). 17 April 2020.
- ^ Small, Vernon (22 November 2013). "Bennett won't make way for Craig". The Dominion Post. Fairfax New Zealand. Archived from the original on 9 June 2014. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
- ^ a b "Official Count Results – Upper Harbour". Electoral Commission. 4 October 2014. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
- ^ "Election 2020: Human rights lawyer Vanushi Walters is new Upper Harbour MP". Stuff. 17 October 2020. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
- ^ "The red tide: Labour wins 15 seats held by National". RNZ. 18 October 2020. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
- ^ "Upper Harbour – Official Result". Electoral Commission. 6 November 2020. Retrieved 8 November 2020.
- ^ "Official Count Results – Upper Harbour". Wellington: New Zealand Electoral Commission. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
- ^ "2014 General Election Voter Turnout Statistics – Upper Harbour". Electoral Commission. 21 January 2016. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
External links
- Upper Harbour electorate profile, New Zealand Parliament