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Upper Harbour is a parliamentary electorate in Auckland that returns one member to the New Zealand House of Representatives. It was first formed for the 2014 election and was won by National's Paula Bennett.
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Population centres
Upper Harbour covers an area astride upper, north-western reaches of Waitemata Harbour. It stretches from Massey, in West Auckland, through West Harbour and Hobsonville, and across to Greenhithe and on to Glenfield and Unsworth Heights on the North Shore.
History
Upper Harbour 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 Upper Harbour and Kelston.
When the draft changes to electorate boundaries were first announced, the incumbent of the Waitakere electorate, Paula Bennett, was quick to announce that she would stand in Upper Harbour instead. This was to prevent Colin Craig of the Conservative Party making a claim for the electorate, as at the time, there was speculation whether the National Party would make a deal with the Conservatives for a safe seat in line with the agreement with ACT New Zealand in the Epsom electorate. Bennett won the 2014 election with a majority of nearly 10,000 votes of Labour's Hermann Retzlaff.
The Upper Harbour and Kelston 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.
Members of Parliament
Unless otherwise stated, all MPs' terms began and ended at general elections.
Key National
As of 2014 no candidates that have contested the Upper Harbour electorate have been returned as list MPs.