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Napier is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the House of Representatives. It is named after the city of Napier, the main urban area within the electorate. The electorate was established for the 1861 election and has existed since. Since the 2014 general election, Napier has been held by Stuart Nash of the New Zealand Labour Party. Previously, it had been held by Chris Tremain of the New Zealand National Party, who stood down prior to the 2014 election.
Contents
- Map of Napier City Hawkes Bay New Zealand
- Population centres
- History
- Members of Parliament
- List MPs
- 2011 election
- References
Map of Napier City, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand
Population centres
The electorate includes the following population centres:
History
The electorate was created in 1861, and preceded by the Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay electorate from 1853 to 1860 and then briefly the County of Hawke electorate in 1860. It was a two-member electorate from 1876 to 1881.
The first representative was Henry Powning Stark, who won the election on 19 February 1861.
There were speculations that Douglas Maclean would be the conservative candidate in the Napier electorate in the 1890 election upon his return from England instead of George Henry Swan, but this was not correct. Swan contested the election and was successful against the Liberal Party candidate Michael Gannon. In the 1893 election, Swan was challenged by the Liberal Party candidate Samuel Carnell, with the latter being successful against the incumbent. In the 1896 election, Carnell in turn was challenged by the conservative candidate Douglas Maclean, with Maclean achieving a large majority against the incumbent.
In the 1931 election, the incumbent, Bill Barnard of the Labour Party, was challenged by John Butler of the Reform Party as the official candidate of the United/Reform Coalition, and United Party member Vigor Brown as an Independent. Brown, at the time Mayor of Napier and previously MP for Napier for many years, withdrew just before the election, but too late for his name to be excluded from the ballot papers. The election was won by Barnard.
Labour's Russell Fairbrother was first elected in the electorate in the 2002 election, replacing long-standing MP Geoff Braybrooke. In the 2005 election, Chris Tremain defeated Fairbrother, winning the electorate for the National Party for the first time since the 1951 election. In the 2008 election, Tremain retained the electorate with an increased majority over Fairbrother. In the 2011 election, Tremain beat Labour's Stuart Nash.
Tremain announced in September 2013 that he would not contest the 2014 election. Wayne Walford succeeded Tremain as National's candidate for the seat, Stuart Nash contested the electorate for the Labour Party for the second time, and Garth McVicar stood for the Conservative Party. McVicar had a high profile due to his previous involvement with the Sensible Sentencing Trust lobby group. In July 2014, Walford was referred to Police by the Electoral Commission for breaching the Electoral Act by failing to display an authorisation statement on his campaign vehicle.
Nash had a majority of 3,850 votes over Walford. McVicar's 7,603 votes split the traditional National Party votes (24.8% of electors who gave their party vote to National gave their electorate vote to McVicar, a total of 4,465 votes), which helped Nash win the election.
Members of Parliament
Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at a general election.
Key
Independent Conservative Liberal Labour Reform Democratic Labour National ACT
List MPs
Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Napier electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections.
2011 election
Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 44,266