Helensville (New Zealand electorate)

Helensville is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The current MP for Helensville is John Key, leader of the National Party.^[1] He has held this position since 2002. The seat was created in 2002, but there was an earlier Helensville seat from 1978 to 1984.

Helensville covers an area of the rapidly growing northern Auckland urban fringe, drawing Helensville and Kumeu from Rodney District, moving south to take in Paremoremo, Greenhithe and Albany from North Shore City, and finally tacking west to include Whenuapai, Hobsonville and West Harbour from Waitakere City.

The seat was promulgated in time for the 2002 election, and is the second general seat created since the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional voting, in reaction to continued high population growth in and around Auckland. It was made by cutting off the northern flank of the seat of Waitakere and adding in areas from the Rodney around its southern boundary. Its only MP has been the current Prime Minister, John Key, who beat sitting Waitakere MP Brian Neeson to the nomination, and in a tight year for his party, won the seat by 1,705 votes in a split field when a disgruntled Neeson chose to stand as an independent. Helensville is partly rural, and wealthy beyond the national average, making it a safe National seat, and the results in 2002 notwithstanding, Key was returned easily in 2005 and 2008 with large majorities.

1 Members of Parliament for Helensville 1.1 List MPs from Helensville 2 Election results 2.1 2008 election 2.2 2005 election 2.3 Election results 1978-1981 3 References 4 External links

Name	Party	Elected	Left Office	Reason
John Key	National	2002, 2005, 2008	incumbent

Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Helensville electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections.

Name	Party	First Elected	Left Office	Contested Helensville
Dail Jones (1)	New Zealand First	2002	2005	2002
Dail Jones (2)	New Zealand First	15 February 2008 1	2008	2005

¹ Jones re-entered Parliament on the resignation of Brian Donnelly in 2008.

General Election 2008: Helensville[2]
Notes: Green background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party Votes	%	±%
	National	Y John Key		26,771	73.61	-	23,559	63.69
	Labour	Darien Fenton		6,224	17.11	-	6,826	18.45
	Green	David Clendon		2,166	5.96	-	1,814	4.90
	ACT	David Garrett		811	2.23	-	2,481	6.71
	United Future	Angela Lovelock		309	0.85	-	289	0.78
	Libertarianz	Peter Osborne		89	0.24	-	21	0.06
	NZ First	-					940	2.54	-
	Progressive	-					195	0.53	-
	Family Party	-					182	0.49	-
	Māori	-					182	0.49	-
	Bill and Ben	-					170	0.46	-
	ALCP	-					131	0.35	-
	Kiwi Party	-					105	0.28	-
	Pacific	-					45	0.12	-
	Alliance	-					19	0.05	-
	Workers Party	-					9	0.02	-
	NZ Democrats	-					8	0.02	-
	RAM	-					8	0.02	-
	RONZ	-					4	0.01	-
Informal votes				251			110
Total Valid votes				36,370			36,988
	National hold		Majority	20,547

General Election 2008: Hellensville[3]
Notes: Green background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party Votes	%	±%
	National	Y John Key		22,008	64.10		19,224	55.09
	Labour	Judy Lawley		9230	26.88		9761	27.97
	NZ First	Dail Jones		1400	4.08		2051	5.88
	United Future	Andrea Deeth		573	1.67		863	2.47
	ACT	Stephen Langford-Tebby		389	1.13		821	2.35
	Māori	Awa Hudson		359	1.05		142	0.41
	Progressive	Julian Aaron		318	0.93		218	0.81
	Green	Helen Koster		58	0.17		1407	4.03
	Destiny	-					151	0.43
	ALCP	-					66	0.19
	Christian Heritage	-					48	0.14
	Libertarianz	-					16	0.05
	Direct Democracy	-					11	0.03
	Alliance	-					9	0.03
	NZ Democrats	-					8	0.02
	Family Rights	-					8	0.02
	99 MP	-					5	0.01
	RONZ	-					5	0.01
	One NZ	-					4	0.01
Informal votes				253			110
Total Valid votes				34,335			34,896
	National hold		Majority

The Helensville seat was created in 1978 from part of the Waitemata electorate, and in 1984 was absorbed into the West Auckland electorate. From 1978 to 1984 the electorate was represented by Dail Jones, then a National MP.

	Election	Winner
	1978 election	Dail Jones (National)
	1981 election

• Electorate Profile Parliamentary Library

v • d • e Electorates of New Zealand at the 2008 General election North Island Auckland Central · Bay of Plenty · Botany · Coromandel · East Coast · East Coast Bays · Epsom · Hamilton East · Hamilton West · Helensville · Hunua · Hutt South · Mana · Māngere · Manukau East · Manurewa · Maungakiekie · Mount Albert · Mount Roskill · Napier · New Lynn · New Plymouth · North Shore · Northcote · Northland · Ōhariu · Ōtaki · Pakuranga · Palmerston North · Papakura · Rangitīkei · Rimutaka · Rodney · Rongotai · Rotorua · Tāmaki · Taranaki-King Country · Taupō · Tauranga · Te Atatū · Tukituki · Waikato · Wairarapa · Waitakere · Wellington Central · Whanganui · Whangarei South Island Christchurch Central · Christchurch East · Clutha-Southland · Dunedin North · Dunedin South · Ilam · Invercargill · Kaikōura · Nelson · Port Hills · Rangitata · Selwyn · Waimakariri · Waitaki · West Coast-Tasman · Wigram Māori Hauraki-Waikato · Ikaroa-Rāwhiti · Tāmaki Makaurau · Te Tai Hauāuru · Te Tai Tokerau · Te Tai Tonga · Waiariki