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 ...

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 entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

. 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 (MMP) election in

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

. Through its existence Ohariu-Belmont was represented by

Peter Dunne Peter Francis Dunne (born 17 March 1954) is a New Zealand retired politician. Dunne was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ōhāriu electorate and its predecessors from 1984 to 2017, first as a member of the Labour Party from 1984 to 1 ...

, leader of the United Future party. Dunne contested and won the recreated electorate in 2008. He announced on 21 August 2017 that he would not stand 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 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 ( , 'the fish of Māui', historically New Ulster) is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but less populous South Island by Cook Strait. With an area of , it is the List ...

. 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 par ...

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 () is a list of cities in New Zealand, 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#Wellington metropolitan area, Wellington metropoli ...

suburb of Belmont into the Rimutaka electorate and the addition of Crofton Downs from . The new electorate contained the section of

Wellington Wellington 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 third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

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 * Newlands, Western Australia, a town in the Shire of Donnybrook–Balingup Ireland * Newlands Cross, Dublin, named after the former Newlands ...

. The rest of the electorate consisted of Lower Hutt's hill suburbs of Korokoro, Maungaraki 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, 14% Asian and 8% Māori.

History

Despite Dunne having a 7,702 vote majority in Ohariu-Belmont at the

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

election, United Future'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 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 final

first-past-the-post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

election in

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

led to Ohariu being divided between Wellington-Karori 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

2023 election

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