![Ohariu electorate, 2014](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Ohariu_electorate%2C_2014.svg)
Ōhāriu, previously spelled Ohariu and then Ōhariu, is 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
The prince-electors (german: Kurfürst pl. , cz, Kurfiřt, ...
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 ...
. It first existed from 1978 to 1993, and was recreated for the
2008 election. In 2008, it was the successor to , first contested at the first
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) election in
1996. Through its existence Ohariu-Belmont was represented by
Peter Dunne
Peter Francis Dunne (born 17 March 1954) is a retired New Zealand politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ōhāriu. He held the seat and its predecessors from 1984 to 2017—representing the Labour Party in Parliament from 1984 ...
, leader of the
United Future
United Future New Zealand, usually known as United Future, was a centrist political party in New Zealand. The party was in government between 2005 and 2017, first alongside Labour (2005–2008) and then supporting National (2008–2017).
Uni ...
party. Dunne contested and won the recreated electorate in 2008. He announced on 21 August 2017, he would not be seeking re-election in the
2017 general election.
Population centres
The 1977 electoral redistribution was the most overtly political since the Representation Commission had been established through an amendment to the ''Representation Act'' in 1886, initiated by
Muldoon's
National Government. As part of the
1976 census, a large number of people failed to fill in an electoral re-registration card, and census staff had not been given the authority to insist on the card being completed. This had little practical effect for people on the general roll, but it transferred
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
to the general roll if the card was not handed in. Together with a northward shift of New Zealand's population, this resulted in five new electorates having to be created in the upper part of 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 ...
. The electoral redistribution was very disruptive, and 22 electorates were abolished, while 27 electorates were newly created (including Ohariu) or re-established. These changes came into effect for the .
The Ohariu electorate replaced the electorate, but did not include any of
Khandallah
Khandallah is a suburb of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. It is located northeast of the city centre, on hills overlooking Wellington Harbour.
Description
The northeastern part of the suburb is dominated by a large area of park ...
or
Ngaio.
In 2008, the boundaries of the Ohariu-Belmont and Ōhariu electorates were near identical except for the removal of the eponymous
Lower Hutt
Lower Hutt ( mi, Te Awa Kairangi ki Tai) is a city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. Administered by the Hutt City Council, it is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area.
It is New Zealand's sixth most p ...
suburb of
Belmont into the
Rimutaka
The Remutaka Range (spelled Rimutaka Range before 2017) is the southernmost range of a mountain chain in the lower North Island of New Zealand. The chain continues north into the Tararua, then Ruahine Ranges, running parallel with the east c ...
electorate and the addition of
Crofton Downs
Crofton Downs is an inner suburb of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. It is situated between Ngaio to the northeast Wilton to the south-west and Wadestown to the south. Its border runs on the Korimako Stream that flows south into t ...
from . The new electorate contained the section of
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...
City between Crofton Downs and southern
Tawa, including
Ngaio,
Khandallah
Khandallah is a suburb of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. It is located northeast of the city centre, on hills overlooking Wellington Harbour.
Description
The northeastern part of the suburb is dominated by a large area of park ...
,
Johnsonville and
Newlands
Newlands may refer to:
Places Australia
* Newlands, Queensland, a locality in the Whitsunday Region
New Zealand
* Newlands, Wellington, a suburb of Wellington
South Africa
* Newlands, Cape Town, a suburb of Cape Town
* Newlands, Johannesbur ...
. The rest of the electorate consisted of Lower Hutt's hill suburbs of
Korokoro,
Maungaraki
Maungaraki is a suburb of Lower Hutt. It is one of several Lower Hutt suburbs on the western hills of the Hutt Valley. It contains the largest suburban development on the Hutt Valley's western escarpment that runs along the Wellington Fault.
...
and
Normandale. Ōhariu was one of eleven electorate names to include a
macron, for the first time. The name was later changed to include a second macron.
Both Ohariu-Belmont and Ōhāriu are young and wealthy; it has the largest number of 30- to 49-year-olds in the country, and the second highest number of families earning between $70,000 and $100,000 per year. 69% of its population is
New Zealand European
European New Zealanders, also known by the Māori-language loanword Pākehā, are New Zealanders of European descent. Most European New Zealanders are of British and Irish ancestry, with significantly smaller percentages of other European anc ...
, 14% Asian and 8%
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
.
History
Despite Dunne having a 7,702 vote majority in Ohariu-Belmont at the
2005
File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...
election, United's performance was less impressive. In 2005 it won just 5.6% of the party vote (down from 13.0% in 2002) in an electorate dominated by the big two parties: National came out on top in the party vote with 43.1%, beating Labour by 3.6%, having been reduced to 24.4%
three years earlier.
election result Ohariu-Belmont 2002
/ref>
Historically Ohariu (without any macrons) was an electorate based around north and western Wellington, contested between 1978 and 1990. A substantial redrawing of Wellington's boundaries ahead of the last First Past the Post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...
election in 1993 led to Ohariu being divided between Wellington-Karori
Wellington-Karori is a former New Zealand parliamentary electorate in the Wellington region, which existed for one parliamentary term from 1993 to 1996, and was held by Pauline Gardiner. In 1995, Gardiner defected from National to United New Zea ...
and the new electorate of Onslow. Dunne, then a member of the Labour Party, was the MP for the old Ohariu between 1984 until its abolition, and won Onslow in 1993.
Members of Parliament
Key
List MPs
Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Ōhāriu electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections.
Election results
2020 election
2017 election
2014 election
2011 election
Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 46,740
2008 election
1990 election
1987 election
1984 election
1981 election
1978 election
Table footnotes
Notes
References
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ohariu
New Zealand electorates
Politics of the Wellington Region
1978 establishments in New Zealand
1993 disestablishments in New Zealand
2008 establishments in New Zealand