Dunedin South

Dunedin South is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate. It first existed from 1881–1890, then from 1905–1946 and was re-established for the introduction of MMP in 1996. A Labour Party stronghold, it has been represented by Clare Curran since the 2008 election.

Population centres

The previous electoral redistribution was undertaken in 1875 for the 1875–76 election. In the six years since, New Zealand's European population had increased by 65%. In the 1881 electoral redistribution, the House of Representatives increased the number of European representatives to 91 (up from 84 since the 1875–76 election). The number of Māori electorates was held at four. The House further decided that electorates should not have more than one representative, which led to 35 new electorates being formed, including Dunedin South, and two electorates that had previously been abolished to be recreated. This necessitated a major disruption to existing boundaries.^[1]

As the name suggests, the electorate is based on the southern suburbs of Dunedin. It stretches out westwards to take in towns on the Taieri Plains such as Mosgiel, Green Island and Fairfield. The Otago Peninsula is also in the electorate.

The current Dunedin South electorate was created in 1996 as one of the original 65 MMP electorates, as a merger between St Kilda and a large part of Dunedin West. It has been enlarged at every boundary review since its creation and at the 2008 election included Middlemarch.

• Southern Dunedin (48,000)
• Mosgiel (10,000)
• Outram (642)

History

The electorate was first established for the 1881 election and abolished after three parliamentary terms in 1890, when several Dunedin electorates were amalgamated to form the City of Dunedin electorate.^[2] During the nine years of its first existence, the electorate was represented by two MPs, Henry Fish (1881–1884 and 1887–1890)^[3] and James Gore (1884–1887).^[4]

Dunedin South was re-established after the abolition of the City of Dunedin electorate for the 1905 election.^[2] The first representative was James Frederick Arnold, who was an independent liberal and who served until the end of the parliamentary term in 1908, when he successfully contested Dunedin Central.^[5]

Thomas Sidey of the Liberal Party who had since a 1901 by-election represented St Kilda won the 1908 election for Dunedin South. He represented the electorate for six parliamentary terms until 1928.^[6] In 1919, John Thomas Paul nearly won the seat for Labour, losing by only 84 votes.

Sidey was succeeded by William Burgoyne Taverner of the Reform Party in the 1928 election.^[7] At the next election in 1931, the electorate was won by Fred Jones of the Labour Party. Jones held the electorate until 1946, when it was abolished, and successfully stood in St Kilda that year.^[8]

The electorate was re-established for the 1996 election and won by Michael Cullen, who later became Finance minister. Cullen had previously represented St Kilda (1981–1996). At the next election in 1999, Cullen stood as a list candidate only and was succeeded by David Benson-Pope as the electorate MP. After three parliamentary terms, Benson-Pope was not selected by the Labour Party as their candidate, but Clare Curran was chosen instead. Curren has represented the electorate since the 2008 election.

The city of Dunedin is a New Zealand Labour Party stronghold; The last National MP elected from a Dunedin constituency was Richard Walls in 1975. However in 2011, National Party candidate, Jo Hayes, reduced the incumbent, Clare Curran's majority from 6449 in 2008^[9] to 4175 in 2011.^[9] Furthermore, Jo Hayes and her campaign team successfully gained a majority of the party vote in Dunedin South by 1837 votes.^[9] The winning of the party vote is unprecedented in Dunedin South, which was seen, pre 2011, as a Labour Party stronghold. However the predecessor seat of St Kilda was represented by Jim Barnes of the National Party between 1951-1957.^[10]

Members of Parliament

Key   Independent     Liberal     Reform     Labour  

Election results

2011 election

General election, 26 November 2011: Dunedin North[11]
Notes: Green background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Y Clare Curran		16,844	48.89	-3.40	12,326	34.97	-11.76
	National	Joanna Hayes		12,669	36.77	+2.05	14,163	40.18	+5.97
	Green	Shane Gallagher		3,197	9.28	+2.44	4,798	13.61	+5.64
	Democrats	Warren Voight		238	0.69	+0.22	126	0.36	+0.18
	ACT	Kimberly Hannah		215	0.62	-0.81	210	0.60	-1.51
	Alliance	Kay Murray		142	0.41	-0.13	58	0.16	-0.03
	NZ First	Randall Ratana		979	2.84	+2.84	2,522	7.15	+2.59
	Restore All Things In Christ	Robert Wansink		167	0.48	+0.18
	Conservative						520	1.48	+1.48
	United Future						186	0.53	-0.21
	Legalise Cannabis						157	0.45	+0.06
	Māori						107	0.30	-0.13
	Mana						62	0.18	+0.18
	Libertarianz						16	0.05	+0.01
Informal votes				830			318
Total Valid votes				34,451			35,569
	Labour hold		Majority	4,175	12.12	-5.45

Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 45,818^[12]

2008 election

General election 2008: Dunedin South[13]
Notes: Green background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Y Clare Curran		19,199	52.29	-4.71	17,408	46.73	-10.40
	National	Conway Powell		12,750	34.73	+8.00	12,742	34.20	+6.99
	Green	Shane Gallagher		2,511	6.84	+0.58	2,971	7.98	+2.57
	ACT	Colin Nicholls		528	1.44	+0.79	785	2.11	+1.36
	Progressive	J M McAlpine		498	1.36	-0.56	461	1.24	-0.17
	United Future	Pauline Moffat		264	0.72	-1.78	276	0.74	-1.73
	Kiwi	Philip Wescombe		261	0.71	-	144	0.39	-
	Independent	David Bernhardt		222	0.60	-
	Alliance	Kay Murray		199	0.54	+0.00	72	0.19	+0.05
	Democrats	Dawn McIntosh		172	0.47	-	66	0.18	+0.09
	Restore All Things In Christ	Robert Wansink		113	0.31	+0.05
	NZ First						1,700	4.56	+0.18
	Bill and Ben						209	0.56	-
	Māori						160	0.43	0.21
	Legalise Cannabis						144	0.39	+0.13
	Family Party						58	0.16	-
	Pacific						17	0.05	-
	Libertarianz						15	0.04	+0.02
	Workers Party						14	0.04	-
	RONZ						7	0.02	+0.01
	RAM						3	0.01	-
Informal votes				484			183
Total Valid votes				36,717			37,252
	Labour hold		Majority	6,449	17.56	-12.71

2005 election

Note: lines coloured beige denote the winner of the electorate vote. Lines coloured pink denote a candidate elected to Parliament from their party's list.

Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Party Votes	%
Labour	Y David Benson-Pope	20033	57.00	20348	57.13
National	Conway Powell	9393	26.73	9692	27.21
Green	Peter Thomlinson	2200	6.26	1926	5.41
NZ First	Alan Heward	1145	3.26	1563	4.39
United	Pauline Moffat	795	2.26	879	2.47
Progressive	Martin Vaughan	672	1.91	500	1.40
Destiny	Brent Daglish	400	1.14	128	0.36
ACT	Alan Wilden	228	0.65	266	0.75
Alliance	Chris Ford	189	0.54	52	0.15
RATC	Robert Wansink	91	0.26	-	-
ALCP	-	-	-	90	0.25
Māori Party	-	-	-	77	0.22
Christian Heritage	-	-	-	35	0.10
Democrats	-	-	-	30	0.08
Direct Democracy	-	-	-	8	0.02
Libertarianz	-	-	-	8	0.02
One NZ	-	-	-	6	0.02
99 MP	-	-	-	4	0.01
Family Rights PP	-	-	-	4	0.01
Republic of NZ	-	-	-	3	0.01
informal votes		398		127
total valid votes		35146		35619
Labour hold	Majority	10,640

sourced from electionresults.govt.nz

1996 election

Notes

References

• McRobie, Alan (1989). Electoral Atlas of New Zealand. Wellington: GP Books. ISBN 0-477-01384-8. 
• Scholefield, Guy (1950) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1949 (3rd ed.). Wellington: Govt. Printer. 
• Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103. 

External links

• Electorate Profile Parliamentary Library