M.P. unhappy with redrawn electorate

Press, 10 November 1986, Page 8

M.P. unhappy with redrawn electorate

The member of Parliament for Selwyn, Miss Ruth Richardson, said yesterday that the Electoral Representation Commission had adopted a “rubbish bin approach” to redrawing her electorate’s boundaries.

She was dismayed at the savagery of the commission, which last week proposed big changes to Selwyn’s boundaries. The new Selwyn electorate has lost territory south of the Rakaia and Selwyn rivers to the new South Canterbury seat. It now includes all of rural Banks Peninsula, most of Eyre County, part of Oxford County, and the area round Belfast which was previously in Christchurch North. Miss Richardson said the commission had adopted a rubbish bin ap-

proach by slicing pieces off a number of quite different electorates.

“I can appreciate the resentment of many constituents in the old and new pieces in the redrawn seats at being made to serve the convenience of the commission rather than being left to identify with their respective communities of interest.”

The commission’s only logical move in Selwyn was including all the rural areas of Banks Peninsula, she said.

Speaking from London where she is on an educational tour, Miss Richardson said that the redrawn seat would be held by the National Party. The party’s Selwyn ellectorate chairman, Mr Jim Sunckell, said he shared Miss Richardson’s

dismay at the new boundaries.

The commission had not coped successfully with the problem of population drain in the southern half of the South Island, he said.

The electorate organisation would decide whether to object to the new boundaries after Miss Richardson returned from Britain later this month, he said.

Mr Sunckell said that the new seat, which virtually surrounds Christchurch, would be difficult to campaign in because of its size and the number of different communities of interest it included. He asked what residents of Akaroa, Cashmere, Belfast, Darfield, and Arthur’s Pass had in common.