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Kelston is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate that returns one member to the House of Representatives. It was first formed for the 2014 election and was won by Labour's Carmel Sepuloni.
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Population centres
Kelston is located in an area in Auckland south-west of Waitemata Harbour covering part of Te Atatu South, the suburbs of Glen Eden, Sunnyvale, Glendene, Kelston, New Lynn, and Avondale, part of Mt Albert and the suburb of Waterview, with the name coming from one of its component suburbs.
History
Kelston was proposed in the 2013/14 electorate boundary review and confirmed by the Electoral Commission on 17 April 2014. The increase in population in the Auckland region as recorded in the 2013 census meant an extra electorate was required to keep all electorates within five percent of their quota. To accommodate an extra electorate the Electoral Commission abolished Waitakere and established two new electorates, namely Kelston and Upper Harbour. The two new electorates will stay in place in their initial form for at least two general elections, with the first one held in 2014 and the second one expected in 2017.
The Kelston electorate took over parts of the Te Atatū, New Lynn, Mount Albert and Waitakere electorates. The first three electorates are all safe Labour electorates while Waitakere was marginal; National's Paula Bennett won the electorate by just nine votes in 2011 from Labour's Carmel Sepuloni. Consequently, Kelston was regarded as a safe Labour electorate. Labour selected Sepuloni as its candidate for the 2014 general election, and she won the election with a majority of over 5,000 votes to National's Christopher Penk.
Members of Parliament
Unless otherwise stated, all MPs' terms began and ended at general elections.
Key Labour
As of 2014 no candidates who have contested the Kelston electorate have been returned as list MPs.