Change to Chch seats in electorate shuffle

Press, 16 July 1982, Page 12

Change to Chch seats in electorate shuffle

From'OLIVER RIDDELL, in Wellington

The Representation Commission will begin work in September on the boundaries for future General Elections, the next of , which is': riotdue until 1984. The Department of Statistics has advised the commis-. sion that the General Election population for the South Island is 816,268 and for'the North Island 2,147.481. i . - .'

As a consequence of these figures, there will be 91 general electorates (an increase of i three) and four Maori electorates. Of the 91 general electorates, 66 will be in the North Island (an increase of three) while the. number in the South Island is held constant by law at 25. . '

On the basis of these figures, the electoral quotas will be 32,651 voters for a South Island general, electorate and 32,538 for a North Island,; one. The population of any ? pew or revised electorate determined by the corrimision, may vary abdve or below the relevant quota by 1633 for the South Island electorate and 1627 for a North Island one, being the five per cent tolerance allowed

Although there will be no new seats in the South Island, there will be some significant boundary changes. The most important effect of these will probably be to make both Selwyn. and Yaldhurst, to the west of Christchurch, more marginal than before. The biggest South Island electorate is Rangiora, with 37,002 voters, and reducing that in size to about 32,651 will mean lopping more than 4000 voters off its southern boundary and realigning Christchurch elector-

ate .boundaries accordingly. The smallest Christchurch seat is Christchurch Central, with 29,201 voters, so its northern boundary,, will probably be extended into St Albans and the northern boundary of that electorate extended into Papanui, to enable Papanui to gain some of the southern Rangiora voters. Both St Albans and Papanui are within a few hundred votes of 32,651. , Avon is also a bit too big, with 34,059 votes. It could give some -voters to Lyttelton and Sydenham, each about 1000 too small. Sydenham is likely to ' extend into Fendalton, pushing it north into Papanui to allow Papanui to again take votes from southern Rangiora, with perhaps the Waimakariri River becoming the boundary between Papanui and Rangiora. The effect of all the changes would probably make these seats even more solid in their support for the present members of Parliament: for National in Fendalton and all the others for Labour. Because Selwyn (National) and Yaldhurst (Labour) are on the south and west , edges of Christchurch, -they will be susceptible to pressure from further south. Because the Dunedin seats are all 'l9OO to 1500 voters light, they will have to be given Voters from;, their surrounding rural National seats. In the case-of Dunedin North, it’ must be extended north at the expense of Otago (already 1000 too-big) and Waitaki which is the right size. < Once Waitaki has lost voters along its southern boundary, its northern boundary must be extended to compensate it.

Even:, though Ashburton has 1000 voters too many, the need to alter the northern boundaries of Waitaki and Timaru may push the northern boundary of Ashburton to the Rakaia River. '- The result of this will be to. give Selwyn the southern Labour strongholds of the Yaldhurst seat, and push Yaldhurst north into National strongholds. Although the Representation Committee may not adopt this format, it probably will. So Selwyn (held for National by Ms Ruth. Richardson by 2129 votes) and Yaldhurst (held for Labour by Mr M. A. Connelly by 1962 votes) will become more marginal still. Labour has the added disadvantage in Yaldhurst that Mr Connelly will retire in 1984 and it must contest the seat with a new candidate.

North of Rangiora, only minor changes are expected. If any South Island seats change hands in 1984 because of boundary changes, they are likely to be Selwyn and Yaldhurst.

'ln the North Island, the three new seats are identified by the clusters of seats with the greatest oversupply of voters. These are in the northwestern suburbs of Auckland, the south-eastern suburbs of Auckland, and in the Bay of Plenty-Taupo area. ‘

A new north-west Auckland seat looks certain to be Labour and a new Bay of Plenty-Taupo seat looks certain ,to be National. The south-east Auckland seat could be either, depending on where, it is carved out from the present seats.