Upper Harbour
Single-member constituency
for the New Zealand House of Representatives
Outline map
Location of Upper Harbourwithin Auckland
RegionAuckland
Current constituency
Current MPCameron Brewer
PartyNational
List MPKaren 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.

Key   National   Labour

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

2020 election

2020 general election: Upper Harbour[9]
Notes:

Blue 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, or other incumbent.
A Green tickY or Red XN denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.

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.
Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list.
Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent.
A Green tickY or Red XN denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.

Party Candidate Votes % ±% Party votes % ±%
National Green tickY 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.
Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list.
Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent.
A Green tickY or Red XN denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.

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

  1. ^ 2017 Mana Party swing is relative to the votes for Internet-Mana in 2014; it shared a party list with the Internet Party in the 2014 election
  2. ^ 2017 Internet Party swing is relative to the votes for Internet-Mana in 2014; it shared a party list with Mana Party in the 2014 election

References

  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ "Election 2020: Human rights lawyer Vanushi Walters is new Upper Harbour MP". Stuff. 17 October 2020. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  3. ^ a b "New electorate boundaries finalised". Electoral Commission. 2014. Retrieved 19 April 2014.
  4. ^ "Report of the Representation Commission 2020" (PDF). 17 April 2020.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ a b "Official Count Results – Upper Harbour". Electoral Commission. 4 October 2014. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  7. ^ "Election 2020: Human rights lawyer Vanushi Walters is new Upper Harbour MP". Stuff. 17 October 2020. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  8. ^ "The red tide: Labour wins 15 seats held by National". RNZ. 18 October 2020. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  9. ^ "Upper Harbour – Official Result". Electoral Commission. 6 November 2020. Retrieved 8 November 2020.
  10. ^ "Official Count Results – Upper Harbour". Wellington: New Zealand Electoral Commission. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
  11. ^ "2014 General Election Voter Turnout Statistics – Upper Harbour". Electoral Commission. 21 January 2016. Retrieved 21 January 2016.

External links

Current New Zealand electorates
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