NEW ELECTORATES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22789, 24 July 1937, Page 14

NEW ELECTORATES

The loss of another South Island seat to the North is, at first sight, the outstanding feature of the boundary revision report just made public. It is no surprise, for it continues the tendency of many years past, and was clearly indicated when the census figures were issued last year. The way electorates have been re-arranged to accommodate the new one in the North Island is, on examination, more significant. Oroua, a rural seat, disappears, while new ones arc created in the Ilutt Valley at Wellington, and about Otahuhu. Both areas have been the scene of- considerable industrial development in recent years. In the Hutt Valley there have appeared a number of establishments erected by great overseas business concerns beginning operations in New Zealand. Aucldanders do not need to be told of the activity in the area included by the new Otahuhu electorate. The railway workshops now operating there are only one example. So the concentration of people caused by this growth of industries has shifted part of the weight of representation from rural to urban areas. But for the country quota, applied in determining boundaries, this movement would have been much moro marked before now. The other changes and adjustments, consequential on the substitution of two new electorates for one abolished, arc in no way remarkable, though the number of them shows what a complicated business it can Ijc. The question may arise in some minds whether it is a good thing to have these automatic revisions of the electorates after, each census, that is, normally, every live years. The answer can be given confidently—it is a very good thing. In some Australian States, where no such provision exists, many years have sometimes gone by without any change in boundaries, while population movements have proceeded briskly. The result has been the growth of anomalies left uncorrected because no party in office would face the difficult and contentious task of boundary revision. New Zealand did much better by providing in the past against the growth of pocket boroughs, through the remedy of automatic adjustment by an impartial authority,)