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 in the Holy Roman Empire until 1806 * An electoral district or c ...

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 This electoral calendar 2008 lists the national/federal direct elections held in 2008 in the de jure and de facto sovereign states and their dependent territories. Referendums are included, even though they are not elections. By-elections are ...

. 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 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone o ...

. 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). U ...

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 Co ...

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-larges ...

. 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 ...

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 ...

City between Crofton Downs and southern Tawa, including Ngaio,

, 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, Johannesbu ...

. The rest of the electorate consisted of Lower Hutt's hill suburbs of

Korokoro Korokoro, a suburb of Lower Hutt City, lies in the south of the North Island of New Zealand. The suburb occupies part of the western hills of the Hutt Valley; its eastern slopes overlook Petone and the Wellington harbour. Korokoro was establi ...

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 Normandale is a semi-rural suburb of Lower Hutt City, New Zealand, on the western hills of the Hutt Valley. It consists of two main roads – Normandale Road and Miromiro Road – and the hills between, and is a five minute drive from the Lower ...

. 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 a ...

, 14% Asian and 8%

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 discover ...

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 thei ...

election in

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peacefu ...

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 Ze ...

and the new electorate of Onslow. Dunne, then a member of the Labour Party, was the MP for the old Ohariu between

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

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