Palmerston North is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The electorate was first formed for the 1890 election and was called Palmerston until 1938.
The current MP for Palmerston North is Iain Lees-Galloway[1] of the Labour Party. He has held this position since the 2008 election.
Contents |
In its current incarnation, Palmerston North covers the most urbanised part of Palmerston North City, with the towns in its orbit such as Ashhurst and Linton being part of the neighbouring electorate of Rangitīkei. The section of the city on the south side of the Manawatu River that includes the main Massey University campus was moved into Rangitīkei, effective at the 2008 election; to counter this, the section of the city on the north side, including the suburb of Milson was moved in at the same time. Palmerston North reached its current size at the expense of the old Manawatu electorate in the lead up to the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional voting in 1996.
The electorate has been loyal to the Labour Party, not having elected a National MP since 1975, and having not re-elected a National MP since 1966.
The first representative of the Palmerston electorate was James Wilson.[2] Wilson previously represented the Foxton electorate until its abolition in 1890.[3] In the 1890 election, Wilson beat Frederick Pirani by 61 votes.[4] In the 1893 election, Wilson stood successfully in the Otaki electorate[2] and Palmerston was won by Pirani, who was confirmed in 1896 and 1899,[5] but defeated in 1902 when he contested the Hutt electorate.[6] In the 1899 election, Prime Minister Richard Seddon expressed his opposition to Pirani (who had previously stood for the Liberal Party) by endorsing William Thomas Wood, who came second that year.[4]
Wood was the successful candidate in the 1902 election, and he was confirmed in 1905.[7] The 1908 election was held under the Second Ballot Act, contested by three candidates. David Buick, Wood and W. Milverton received 2675, 2626 and 123 votes, respectively. As Buick did not receive an absolute majority, a second ballot was required.[8] Buick standing for the Reform Party was again successful in the second round of voting and was thus elected.[9] Buick was re-elected in 1911 and 1914, but died in office on 18 November 1918 during the influenza epidemic.[10]
James Alfred Nash, the sitting Mayor of Palmerston North, won the resulting by-election on 19 December 1918.[11] Nash was confirmed at the next five general elections,[11] but was defeated in the 1935 election by Joe Hodgens of the Labour Party in an election also contested by the then mayor, Augustus Edward Mansford.[12] Hodgens had previously contested the electorate in the 1922 and 1931 elections. He retired from the electorate at the 1946 election due to the deteriorating health of his wife.[12]
The 1946 election was contested between Ormond Wilson for Labour and Mansford, whose relationship with the National Party was strained, since his 1935 election campaign had contributed to the defeat of Nash. Mansford failed to get nominated by the National Party for the 1938 and 1943 elections. So in 1946, the National Party decided not to stand a candidate, with Mansford running as an Independent. Wilson obtained a majority of 928 votes.[13]
Wilson lost the subsequent election in 1949 against Blair Tennent of the National Party.[14][15] Tennent was confirmed at the subsequent election, but then lost against the Labour candidate, Philip Skoglund, in the 1954 election.[15] Skoglund contested the 1957 election against Bill Brown of the National Party and was confirmed by the voters. However, in the 1960 election, Brown beat Skoglund by the narrow majority of 123 votes. At the 1963 election, Brown had a 772 vote majority to Skoglund. The 1966 election was contested by Brown against Labour's Joe Walding, with Brown holding a 259 vote majority. Brown died in office on 16 October 1967 at a function in Kaiapoi.[16]
The resulting 1967 by-election was contested by five candidates: Walding (Labour Party), Gordon Cruden (National Party), John O'Brien (Social Credit Party), Goldingham (Progress) and P. J. Wedderspoon (Democratic Labour). Walding obtained a majority of 592 votes.[17] Walding represented the Palmerston North electorate until the 1975 election, when he was defeated by John Lithgow, and from 1978 to 1981. Six months prior to the 1981 election, he announced his retirement from Parliament.[17]
Iain Lees-Galloway was selected by the Labour Party as successor to retiring MP Steve Maharey, who became Vice Chancellor of Massey University, in a contested Labour Party selection for the 2008 election.[18] Lees-Galloway defeated the National Party candidate, Malcolm Plimmer, with a majority of 1,117 votes.[19] In the 2011 election, Lees-Galloway was confirmed with an increased majority of 3,285 votes, defeating National's Leonie Hapeta.[20]
Key
Independent Liberal Reform Labour National
| Name | Party | Elected | Left Office | Reason |
| Trevor De Cleene | Labour | 1981, 1984, 1987 | 1990 | retired |
| Steve Maharey | Labour | 1990, 1993, 1996, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005 | 2008 | retired |
| Iain Lees-Galloway | Labour | 2008, 2011 | incumbent |
| General Election 2011: Palmerston North | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notes: |
Green background denotes an incumbent. |
||||
| Party | Candidate | Notes | List # | Source | |
| United Future | Sultan Eusoff | 4 | [21][22] | ||
| National | Leonie Hapeta | 65 | [21][23] | ||
| Labour | Iain Lees-Galloway | Incumbent since 2008 | 37 | [21][24] | |
| Conservative | Andrew Marquet | [21][25] | |||
| ACT | Dan Stratton | 22 | [21][26][27] | ||
| Green | Corrina Tucker | 58 | [21][28] | ||
Electorate (as at 11 November 2011): 42,897[29]
| General Election 2008: Palmerston North[30] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Notes: Green background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. |
|||||||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Party Votes | % | ±% | ||
| Labour | Iain Lees-Galloway | 15,977 | 46.82 | - | 14,108 | 40.68 | |||
| National | Malcolm Plimmer | 14,860 | 43.55 | - | 14,103 | 40.66 | |||
| Green | Lawrence O'Halloran | 1,509 | 4.42 | - | 2,258 | 6.51 | |||
| NZ First | Graham Odering | 658 | 1.93 | - | 1,404 | 4.05 | |||
| ACT | Kevin Dittmer | 420 | 1.23 | - | 948 | 2.73 | |||
| Progressive | Debbie Lucas | 261 | 0.76 | - | 408 | 1.18 | |||
| United Future | Frank Owen | 259 | 0.76 | - | 430 | 1.24 | |||
| Independent | Grant Seton | 107 | 0.31 | - | - | - | |||
| Independent | Arshad Chatha | 74 | 0.22 | - | - | - | |||
| Bill and Ben | - | 338 | 0.97 | - | |||||
| Māori | - | 247 | 0.71 | - | |||||
| Legalise Cannabis | - | 139 | 0.40 | - | |||||
| Kiwi | - | 117 | 0.34 | - | |||||
| Family Party | - | 89 | 0.26 | - | |||||
| Pacific | - | 37 | 0.11 | - | |||||
| Alliance | - | 16 | 0.05 | - | |||||
| Libertarianz | - | 16 | 0.05 | - | |||||
| Workers Party | - | 12 | 0.03 | - | |||||
| Democrats | - | 6 | 0.02 | - | |||||
| RONZ | - | 4 | 0.01 | - | |||||
| RAM | - | 2 | 0.01 | - | |||||
| Informal votes | 341 | 159 | |||||||
| Total Valid votes | 34,125 | 34,682 | |||||||
| Labour hold | Majority | 1,117 | |||||||
| General Election 2005: Palmerston North[31] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Notes: Green background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. |
|||||||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Party Votes | % | ±% | ||
| Labour | Steve Maharey | 17,263 | 53.87 | 14,642 | 44.98 | ||||
| National | Malcolm Plimmer | 11,763 | 36.71 | 11,943 | 36.69 | ||||
| Green | Lawrence O'Hallorahan | 1141 | 3.56 | 2116 | 6.50 | ||||
| NZ First | Graham Odering | 853 | 2.66 | 1673 | 5.14 | ||||
| United Future | Gary Pedersen | 627 | 1.96 | 1071 | 3.29 | ||||
| Progressive | Dawn Patchett | 251 | 0.78 | 370 | 1.14 | ||||
| Independent | Archard Chatha | 147 | 0.46 | - | |||||
| ACT | - | 285 | 0.88 | ||||||
| Māori | - | 161 | 0.49 | - | |||||
| Destiny | - | 116 | 0.36 | ||||||
| Legalise Cannabis | - | 59 | 0.18 | ||||||
| Christian Heritage | - | 49 | 0.15 | ||||||
| Libertarianz | - | 18 | 0.06 | ||||||
| Alliance | - | 14 | 0.04 | ||||||
| 99 MP | - | 10 | 0.03 | ||||||
| One NZ | - | 7 | 0.02 | ||||||
| Democrats | - | 6 | 0.02 | ||||||
| Direct Democracy | - | 6 | 0.02 | ||||||
| RONZ | - | 4 | 0.01 | ||||||
| Family Rights | - | 2 | 0.01 | ||||||
| Informal votes | 276 | 105 | |||||||
| Total Valid votes | 35,460 | 35,983 | |||||||
| Labour hold | Majority | 5500 | 17.16 | ||||||
|
|||||||||||