Te Atatū (before 2008 styled 'Te Atatu', without macron) is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The current MP for Te Atatū is Chris Carter,[1] who is formerly of the Labour Party, but is currently an Independent MP. He first held this position from 1993 to 1996 and again since 1999.
Te Atatū comprises the suburbs of Waitakere City on the western side of the Whau River in Auckland. The main parts of the seat are the suburbs of Glendene, Te Atatu, Lincoln and Massey. Boundary changes in the leadup to the 2008 election have seen the northern boundary edge northwards to include Massey East, with a small southern block transferred to the neighbouring Waitakere seat.
The makeup of Te Atatū shows that while its population is composed roughly inline with the national average: It is roughly the same ages as the nation (with slightly more residents over fifty), and its average income ($22627) is only slightly lower than the rest of New Zealand. Its main point of demographic difference with its country is ethnic - it has more Asian New Zealanders and more Pacific Islanders than the rest of the country.
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The first Te Atatū seat was created ahead of the 1978 election by pulling apart the seat of Waitemata; its first MP was future cabinet minister Dr Michael Bassett, who had been the MP for Waitemata from 1972 until 1975 before an anti-labour landslide cost him his job. Basset held the seat until his retirement in 1990, when a toxic battle to succeed Bassett in an already lean year for Labour passed one of their safe seats into the hands of Brian Neeson. Neeson himself never represented the same seat twice in succession, (having jumped ship to Waitakere in 1993, Waipareia in 1996, to a new, larger Waitakere seat in 1999 before being denied the chance to contest Helensville in 2002), and his departure in 1993, coupled with a reversal of electoral fortune for the National Party (down from 47.8 to 35.1 percent) lead to a victory for incoming Labour MP Chris Carter. In his first three years in Parliament, Carter made news for being the first openly gay member of Parliament.
With the introduction of MMP voting in 1996, Te Atatū was scrapped in favour of a new seat called Waipareira, which covered the same area as Te Atatū, but also included the wealthy harbourside suburbs to the north of the seat. Neeson and Carter were rematched, when the presence of former Labour MP for West Auckland turned New Zealand First candidate Jack Elder, undermined Carter's chances and handed the seat to Neeson by fewer than a thousand votes.
Three years later, Te Atatu was re-established, with the new seat focused more on the working class suburbs at the southern end of Waitakere City and Carter had no such trouble using the seat to springboard back into Parliament. In 2002 and 2005, because the electoral climate favoured Labour, Carter and his party dominated the seat, winning at least 49 percent of the candidate and list vote, but the Labour vote was reduced in the 2008 election.
Key
Labour National Independent Alliance
| Election | Winner | |
|---|---|---|
| 1978 election | Michael Bassett | |
| 1981 election | ||
| 1984 election | ||
| 1987 election | ||
| 1990 election | Brian Neeson | |
| 1993 election | Chris Carter | |
| Election | Winner | |
|---|---|---|
| 1999 election | Chris Carter | |
| 2002 election | ||
| 2005 election | ||
| 2008 election | ||
Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections since 1999 where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Te Atatū electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs' terms began and ended at general elections.
| Election | Winner | |
|---|---|---|
| 1999 election | Laila Harré | |
| 2005 election | Tau Henare1 | |
| 2008 election | ||
1 Tau Henare was a New Zealand First MP from 1993 until his defeat in 1999
| General Election 2011: Te Atatū | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notes: |
Green background denotes an incumbent. |
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| Party | Candidate | Notes | List # | Source | |
| ACT | Dominic Costello | 16 | [2] | ||
| National | Tau Henare | MP 1993-1999, list MP since 2005 | 40 | [2][3] | |
| Conservative | Cynthia Liu | 24 | [2][4] | ||
| Green | Gary Stewart | 56 | [2] | ||
| Labour | Phil Twyford | List MP since 2008 | 33 | [2][5] | |
| Independent | Chris Carter | Incumbent (Labour) 1993-96 and since 1999, removed from Labour caucus 2010 | [6] | ||
Electorate (as at 11 November 2011): 42,742[7]
| General Election 2008: Te Atatu[8] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Notes: Green background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. |
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| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Party Votes | % | ±% | ||
| Labour | Chris Carter | 16,459 | 53.44 | - | 13,171 | 41.50 | |||
| National | Tau Henare | 11,161 | 36.24 | - | 13,183 | 41.54 | |||
| Green | Xavier Goldie | 1,003 | 3.26 | - | 1,270 | 4.00 | |||
| ACT | Lech Beltowski | 891 | 2.89 | - | 1,002 | 3.16 | |||
| Pacific | Fiasili Jackueline Ah Tong | 435 | 1.41 | - | 362 | 1.14 | |||
| Kiwi | Jo van Kempen | 260 | 0.84 | - | 123 | 0.39 | |||
| United Future | Talei Solomon-Mua | 250 | 0.81 | - | 278 | 0.88 | |||
| Progressive | Pavitra Roy | 244 | 0.79 | - | 267 | 0.84 | |||
| Alliance | Robert van Ruyssevelt | 94 | 0.31 | - | 27 | 0.09 | |||
| NZ First | - | 1,328 | 4.18 | - | |||||
| Māori | - | 264 | 0.83 | - | |||||
| Bill and Ben | - | 180 | 0.57 | - | |||||
| Family Party | - | 134 | 0.42 | - | |||||
| Legalise Cannabis | - | 111 | 0.35 | - | |||||
| Workers Party | - | 12 | 0.04 | - | |||||
| Democrats | - | 8 | 0.03 | - | |||||
| Libertarianz | - | 8 | 0.03 | - | |||||
| RAM | - | 6 | 0.02 | - | |||||
| RONZ | - | 4 | 0.01 | - | |||||
| Informal votes | 480 | 174 | |||||||
| Total Valid votes | 30,797 | 31,738 | |||||||
| Labour hold | Majority | 5,298 | |||||||
| General election 2005: Te Atatu[9] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Notes: Green background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. |
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| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Party Votes | % | ±% | ||
| Labour | Chris Carter | 18,087 | 59.37 | -3.12 | 16,209 | 52.03 | |||
| National | Tau Henare | 7640 | 25.08 | +10.63 | 9466 | 30.38 | |||
| NZ First | Moetu Davis | 1016 | 11.14 | 1830 | 5.87 | ||||
| United Future | Jo van Kemp | 897 | 2.94 | 956 | 3.07 | ||||
| Green | Kath Dewar | 849 | 2.79 | 1064 | 3.42 | ||||
| Māori | Kelvin Martin | 250 | 0.82 | 219 | 0.70 | - | |||
| Progressive | Patriva Roy | 226 | 0.74 | 347 | 1.11 | ||||
| Christian Heritage | Betty Jenkins | 205 | 0.67 | 97 | 0.31 | ||||
| Alliance | Bob van Ruyssevelt | 104 | 0.34 | 24 | 0.08 | ||||
| Independent | Adele Hughes | 86 | 0.28 | - | |||||
| Family Rights | Stella Te Paeru Brown-Knowles | 77 | 0.25 | 101 | 0.32 | ||||
| Direct Democracy | Gregory Trichon | 56 | 0.18 | 23 | 0.07 | ||||
| ACT | - | 379 | 1.03 | ||||||
| Destiny | - | 107 | 0.29 | ||||||
| Legalise Cannabis | - | 52 | 0.17 | ||||||
| One NZ | - | 6 | 0.02 | ||||||
| RONZ | - | 6 | 0.02 | ||||||
| Libertarianz | - | 5 | 0.02 | ||||||
| 99 MP | - | 4 | 0.01 | ||||||
| Democrats | - | 4 | 0.01 | ||||||
| Informal votes | 370 | 176 | |||||||
| Total Valid votes | 30,463 | 31,154 | |||||||
| Labour hold | Majority | 10,447 | 34.29 | -13.75 | |||||
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