Rodney was a New Zealand parliamentary

electorate Electorate may refer to: * The people who are eligible to vote in an election, especially their number e.g. the term ''size of (the) electorate'' * The dominion of a Prince-elector in the Holy Roman Empire until 1806 * An electoral district An ...

, returning one Member of Parliament to the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

. The last MP for Rodney was Mark Mitchell of the National Party. He held this position from

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

until the electorate was replaced with

Whangaparāoa The Whangaparaoa Peninsula is a suburban area about 25 km north of Auckland, New Zealand. It had 30,672 residents in 2013, many of them in the eponymous town of Whangaparaoa on its southern side. It is part of the Hibiscus Coast. ...

in 2020. Mitchell stood for and won that seat.

Population centres

The

1941 New Zealand census The New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings ( mi, Te Tatauranga o ngā Tāngata Huri Noa i Aotearoa me ō rātou Whare Noho) is a national population and housing census conducted by government department Statistics New Zealand every five y ...

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 The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

gained a further two electorates from the

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

due to faster population growth. The abolition of the

country quota The country quota was a part of the New Zealand electoral system from 1881 until 1945, when it was abolished by the First Labour Government. Its effect was to make urbanUrban electorate were those that contained cities or boroughs of over 2000 peo ...

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, 19 electorates were created for the first time, and eight former electorates were re-established, including Rodney. The 1981 census had shown that the North Island had experienced further population growth, and three additional general seats were created through the 1983 electoral redistribution, bringing the total number of electorates to 95. The South Island had, for the first time, experienced a population loss, but its number of general electorates was fixed at 25 since the 1967 electoral redistribution. More of the South Island population was moving to

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

, and two electorates were abolished, while two electorates were recreated. In the North Island, six electorates were newly created, three electorates were recreated (including Rodney), and six electorates were abolished. 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. Overall, three electorates were newly created, three electorates were recreated, and four electorates were abolished (including Rodney). All of those electorates were in the North Island. Changes in the South Island were restricted to boundary changes. These changes came into effect with the . Rodney covers an area of the northern

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

region from Warkworth in the north, south through the

Hibiscus Coast The Hibiscus Coast is a populated area on a stretch of the Hauraki Gulf coast in New Zealand's Auckland Region. It has a population of making it the 11th most populous urban area in New Zealand, and the second most populous in the Auckland Re ...

to Auckland's northern urban fringe. High population growth in north and west Auckland has led to Rodney shrinking –

Helensville Helensville is a town in the North Island of New Zealand. It is sited northwest of Auckland, close to the southern extremity of the Kaipara Harbour. New Zealand State Highway 16, State Highway 16 passes through the town, connecting it to Waimauk ...

and Kumeu were taken out in 1999, and the next major town to be removed was

Wellsford Wellsford (Māori: ''Whakapirau'') is a town on the Northland Peninsula in the northern North Island of New Zealand. It is the northernmost major settlement in the Auckland Region, and is 77 kilometres northwest of the Auckland CBD. Wellsford i ...

after the 2006 census. At the 2020 general election, Rodney will be abolished, with the northern section around Warkworth being merged with most of

into

Kaipara ki Mahurangi Kaipara ki Mahurangi is an electorate to the New Zealand House of Representatives. It was created for the . Population centres The electorate consists of a large northern section of the Auckland Region. It stretches from the border with Northlan ...

, and the southern section becoming the bulk of the new

electorate.

History

Rodney was first created for the and was represented by four MPs from 1871 to 1890:

Harry Farnall Harry Warner Farnall (18 December 1838 – 5 June 1891) was a New Zealand politician, emigration agent and labour reformer. He was a Member of Parliament from Auckland. He was born in Burley Park, Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated t ...

1871–1872 (resigned); John Sheehan 1872–1879 (elected for

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

in 1879);

Seymour Thorne George Seymour Thorne George (10 October 1851 – 2 July 1922) was a New Zealand politician. The premier, Sir George Grey, was his wife's half-uncle and adoptive father, and that relationship resulted in Thorne George representing the South Island elec ...

1879–1884 (retired); and

William Pollock Moat William Pollock Moat (1827–1895) was a 19th-century Member of Parliament (New Zealand), Member of Parliament from Auckland, New Zealand. Pollock represented the Warkworth electorate in the Auckland Provincial Council from 18 November 1873 ...

1884–1890 (retired). Its first recreation was from the to 1978, and was recreated for a single term six years later for the . Rodney was again recreated ahead of the change to

mixed-member proportional Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...

(MMP) voting in 1996. Its original incarnation was coterminous with the district for which it is named – most of the old Albany seat minus its eponymous town, with a large section of Kaipara tacked onto the northern fringe. Both of these seats were held by National MPs – Lockwood Smith in Kaipara and then Deputy Prime Minister

Don McKinnon Sir Donald Charles McKinnon (born 27 February 1939) is a New Zealand politician who served as the 12th deputy prime minister of New Zealand and the minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand. He was the secretary-general of the Commonwealth of ...

in Albany. Smith won his party's nomination for what is a safe National seat and has held it until the , when he stood as a list candidate only. In the 1996 election,

Mike Lee Michael Shumway Lee (born June 4, 1971) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Utah, a seat he has held since 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party. Lee began his career as a clerk for the U ...

came second standing as an

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

Members of Parliament

Key

List MPs

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

Election results

2017 election

2014 election

2011 election

Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 49,407

2008 election

2005 election

1999 election

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

Table footnotes

Notes

References

* *

External links

Electorate profile
''Parliamentary Library'' {{historical electorates of New Zealand New Zealand electorates in the Auckland Region Politics of the Auckland Region 1870 establishments in New Zealand 1890 disestablishments in New Zealand 1978 disestablishments in New Zealand 1987 disestablishments in New Zealand 1946 establishments in New Zealand 1984 establishments in New Zealand 1996 establishments in New Zealand