Waitakere was a parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The electorate was first formed for the 1946 election and existed until 2014, with breaks from 1969 to 1978 and from 1987 to 1993. The last MP for Waitakere was Paula Bennett of the National Party, who had held this position since the 2008 election.

Population centres

The 1941 New Zealand census had been postponed due to World War II, so the 1946 electoral redistribution had to take ten years of population growth and movements into account. The North Island gained a further two electorates from the South Island due to faster population growth. The abolition of the country quota through the Electoral Amendment Act, 1945 reduced the number and increased the size of rural electorates. None of the existing electorates remained unchanged, 27 electorates were abolished, eight former electorates were re-established, and 19 electorates were created for the first time, including Waitakere.^[1]

Waitakere was 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 moved around at every electoral redistribution; in 1999, they were moved northwards as far as Helensville before being pulled back south three years later. In its last boundaries before abolition, the electorate included the Waitakere City suburbs of Henderson, Rānui and Swanson before heading west over the Waitākere Ranges to Piha.

Waitakere was first abolished in the 1967 electoral redistribution, which resulted from the Electoral Act 1965 that fixed the number of South Island electorates at 25. As a result, three additional electorates were created in the North Island, and one additional in the South Island. One of those new electorates was Henderson, which took over most of Waitakere's area. These changes came into effect with the 1969 election.^[2] Henderson existed for three electoral cycles and was abolished again through the 1977 electoral redistribution, when Waitakere was recreated; this came into effect with the 1978 election.^[3]

The 1987 electoral redistribution took the continued population growth in the North Island into account, and two additional general electorates were created, bringing the total number of electorates to 97. In the South Island, the shift of population to Christchurch had continued.^[4] Overall, three electorates were newly created, three electorates were recreated, and four electorates were abolished (including Waitakere). All of those electorates were in the North Island. Changes in the South Island were restricted to boundary changes.^[5] These changes came into effect with the 1987 election.^[6] Waitakere was abolished from 1984 to 1993, and then abolished again in 2014 to make way for new electorates Kelston and Upper Harbour.^[7][8]

History

The Waitakere electorate existed from the 1946 election to 1969, and from the 1978 election to 1987. This seat was held in an unbroken run by Labour for the whole of these two periods.

The name Waitakere was reclaimed and applied to a new seat in 1993, which was expanded ahead of the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting in 1996 election at the expense of the former seats of Henderson and Titirangi.^[9]

A high turnout for the Alliance in West Auckland in 1996 split the left wing vote and denied then-Titirangi MP and Waitakere candidate Suzanne Sinclair re-election to Parliament, to the benefit of Marie Hasler, also a former Titirangi MP. In 2002 Lynne Pillay was elected over Alliance leader Laila Harré. In 2005 Pillay was re-elected with a five thousand vote majority over National's Paula Bennett. In a nationwide swing towards the National Party in 2008 Bennett managed to unseat Pillay, with a majority of 632.

Carmel Sepuloni was selected by the Labour Party to challenge Paula Bennett for her seat in 2011.^[10] On election night, Paula Bennett was thought to have held the seat by 349 votes but after counting 3,130 special votes it was determined that Carmel Sepuloni had won by 11 votes. The National Party requested a judicial recount due to the tightness of the competition (Labour did the same in Christchurch Central, where the Labour candidate was beaten by 45 votes^[11]). The outcome of Waitakere's recount was released on 17 December 2011, returning Paula Bennett with a nine-vote majority.^[12][13] The margin was two orders of magnitude smaller than the number of voters who voted while not being on the electoral roll, 393.^[14]

In November 2013, it was proposed that the Waitakere electorate be abolished for the 2014 general election.^[15] The electorate was mainly subsumed by Helensville, Te Atatū, and the new Kelston electorate, with a small section moving to the new Upper Harbour electorate.^[7]

Members of Parliament

Key

  Labour   National

List MPs

Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Waitakere electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections.

Election results

2011 election

Due to the closeness of the election in Waitakere a judicial recount was undertaken on 16 December and it was confirmed that Bennett has beaten Sepuloni by nine votes on 17 December.

2011 general election: Waitakere [16]
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 Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	National	Y Paula Bennett		13,465	44.74	-0.16	12,533	40.27	-0.95
	Labour	Carmel Sepuloni		13,456	44.71	+1.88	11,579	37.21	-2.57
	Green	Stephen Tollestrup		1,855	6.16	+0.67	3,308	10.63	+4.16
	Conservative	Danny Mountain		611	2.03	+2.03	753	2.42	+2.42
	Legalise Cannabis	Jeff Lye		331	1.10	+1.10	166	0.53	+0.01
	Mana	Sue Bradford		322	1.06	+1.06	174	0.56	+0.56
	Libertarianz	Peter Osborne		55	0.18	+0.18	33	0.11	+0.06
	NZ First						2,011	6.46	+2.91
	ACT						259	0.83	-2.56
	Māori Party						168	0.54	-0.23
	United Future						125	0.40	-0.31
	Alliance						9	0.03	-0.10
	Democrats						4	0.01	-0.01
Informal votes				652			300
Total valid votes				30,095			31,122
	National hold		Majority	9	0.03	-2.04

Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 43,143^[17]

2008 election

2008 general election: Waitakere[18]
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 Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	National	Paula Bennett		13,704	44.90	+11.83	12,952	41.22	+7.05
	Labour	N Lynne Pillay		13,072	42.83	-5.98	12,498	39.77	-6.88
	Green	Gary Stewart		1,676	5.49	+0.05	2,032	6.47	+0.54
	NZ First	Craig McNair		597	1.96	-2.36	1,117	3.55	-2.07
	ACT	John G Riddell		482	1.58	+0.25	1,067	3.40	+2.07
	Pacific	Fia Misa Tupou		448	1.47	+1.47	398	1.27	+1.27
	Family Party	Michael Kidd		358	1.17	+1.17	136	0.43	+0.43
	Independent	Rita Beckmannflay		107	0.35	+0.35
	Alliance	Sandra Ethell		78	0.26	+0.06	42	0.13	+0.02
	Māori Party						241	0.77	+0.10
	Progressive						225	0.72	-0.44
	United Future						224	0.71	-2.23
	Bill and Ben						168	0.53	+0.53
	Legalise Cannabis						166	0.53	+0.26
	Kiwi						106	0.34	+0.34
	Workers Party						15	0.05	+0.05
	Libertarianz						14	0.04	+0.02
	RAM						10	0.03	+0.03
	Democrats						7	0.02	+0.004
	RONZ						5	0.02	±0.00
Informal votes				300			149
Total valid votes				30,522			31,423
	National gain from Labour		Majority	632	2.07	+17.81

2005 election

2005 general election: Waitakere[19]
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 Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	Labour	Y Lynne Pillay		15,325	48.81	+10.42	14,988	46.65
	National	Paula Bennett		10,383	33.07	+13.41	10,976	34.16
	Green	David Clendon		1,709	5.44		1,903	5.92
	NZ First	Brendon Stewart		1,354	4.31		1,806	5.62
	United Future	Hannah Baral		1,035	3.30		944	2.94
	ACT	John Riddell		416	1.33		427	1.33
	Destiny	Stan Green		394	1.25		227	0.71
	Progressive	David Parkyn		293	0.93		370	1.15
	Māori Party	Charles Joe		272	0.87		213	0.66
	Direct Democracy	Alona Covich		79	0.25		33	0.10
	Family Rights	John Ulberg		74	0.24		28	0.09
	Alliance	Sandra Ethell		62	0.20	-27.37	36	0.11
	Legalise Cannabis						87	0.27
	Christian Heritage						58	0.18
	Libertarianz						8	0.02
	99 MP						7	0.02
	Democrats						6	0.02
	One NZ						5	0.02
	RONZ						5	0.02
Informal votes				271			127
Total valid votes				31,396			32,127
	Labour hold		Majority	4,942	15.74	+7.08

2002 election

1999 election

Refer to Candidates in the New Zealand general election 1999 by electorate#Waitakere for a list of candidates.

1993 election

1984 election

1981 election

1978 election

1966 election

1963 election

1960 election

1957 election

1954 election

1951 election

1949 election

1946 election