 | ||
Rongotai is a New Zealand electorate, returning a single member to the House of Representatives of New Zealand. The current MP for Rongotai is Annette King of the Labour Party. She has held this position since 1996.
Contents
Population centres
The Rongotai electorate is centred on the southern and eastern suburbs of Wellington City. It stretches from Miramar in the east to take in the suburbs of Rongotai, Kilbirnie, Lyall Bay and Hataitai and runs from the south coast at Island Bay up through the southern section of the Brooklyn Hill to an east-west border next to Wellington Hospital in Newtown. Because Wellington Airport is within Rongotai's boundaries, the constituency also contains the Chatham Islands including Waitangi. It is named after the suburb of Rongotai which is roughly in its centre. Other suburbs included Berhampore, Owhiro Bay, Seatoun, and Roseneath.
A revision after 1996 pulled the boundary southwards, moving the suburbs around the Basin Reserve and the Massey University campus into Wellington Central. In the 2002 distribution, the area covered by the Rongotai electorate did not change. Changes to boundaries were done in the 2007 distribution, but no further changes were done in the 2013/13 distribution.
History
Rongotai was one of the original 65 mixed-member proportional (MMP) representation electorates drawn in 1994 ahead of the 1996 election. It is the successor to the old Island Bay and Miramar electorates, though the areas in these seats in the orbit of the central city were incorporated into a redrawn Wellington Central electorate.
Labour's Annette King has been elected and re-elected as the member of parliament for Rongotai at all seven elections up to 2014. In five out of the seven elections, Labour also won the party vote; the exception being in 1996 when National out-polled Labour by just 68 votes, and in 2014, when National's majority was 852 votes. Chris Finlayson of the National Party has opposed his distant cousin King since the 2008 election. After the 2014 election, he told his supporters that on current trends, he should be able to win the electorate by 2038.
Members of Parliament
Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections.
Key
List MPs
Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Rongotai electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections.
1 Norman entered Parliament when Nándor Tánczos resigned.
2014 election
Electorate (as at 30 April 2016): 48,525
2011 election
Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 46,153