 | ||
Clutha-Southland is a parliamentary constituency returning one member to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The current MP for Clutha Southland is Todd Barclay of the National Party. He entered parliament at the 2014 general election, replacing Bill English who had held the seat since 1996.
Contents
Population centres
Clutha-Southland was promulgated as one of the original 65 MMP electorates, centred on Southland district and covering an area stretching from Fiordland across the far south of the South Island to the south Otago coast. Its largest population centres are Gore and Balclutha. In 2008, the seat of Otago was abolished and split between the Waitaki and Clutha-Southland electorates, and parts of Central Otago, primarily around Arrowtown, Queenstown and Roxburgh were also transferred to Clutha-Southland.
Clutha-Southland is the successor to the old Wallace, Clutha and Awarua constituencies. Its boundaries had changed at all three redistributions undertaken since its creation, as dwindling populations in both the old Clutha-Southland electorate and in the neighbouring Invercargill electorate have forced both seats northwards to ensure every electorate population stays within certain limits. This trend stopped in the 2013 redistribution, however, with both the Clutha-Southland and Invercargill electorates remaining unchanged in area.
History
Because of its largely rural nature, Clutha-Southland is one of the National Party's safest seats. Bill English, who is the current Prime Minister, held the seat from 1996 to 2014. Previously, English represented the Wallace electorate (1990-1996). English announced in January 2014 that he would retire as the electorate MP at the 2014 general election, becoming a list MP only.
Todd Barclay won the 2014 election by a significant margin to Labour's Liz Craig, obtaining nearly 64% of the candidate votes. Barclay is currently the youngest MP in the House of Representatives.
Members of Parliament for Clutha-Southland
The electorate has been represented by two Members of Parliament so far.
Key National
2011 election
Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 43,395
2008 election
Note: lines coloured beige denote the winner of the electorate vote. Lines coloured pink denote a candidate elected to Parliament from their party's list.
2005 election
sourced from electionresults.govt.nz