History
In an historical sense, the name Waitakere can refer to an electorate contested between the 1946 election and 1984 elections. This seat was held in an unbroken run by Labour Party MPs for its entire existence before it was disestablished. The name Waitakere was reclaimed and applied to a new seat in 1993, which was expanded ahead of the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional voting in 1996 election at the expense of the former seats of Henderson and Titirangi.
A high turnout for the Alliance in West Auckland in 1996 split the left wing vote and denied then-Titirangi MP and Waitakere candidate Suzanne Sinclair re-election to Parliament, to the benefit of Marie Hasler, also a former Titirangi MP. In 2002 Lynne Pillay was elected over Alliance leader Laila Harré. In 2005 Pillay was re-elected with a five thousand vote majority over National's Paula Bennett. In a nationwide swing towards the National Party in 2008 Bennett managed to unseat Pillay, with a majority of 632.
Carmel Sepuloni was selected by the Labour Party to challenge Paula Bennett for her seat in 2011. On election night, Paula Bennett was thought to have held the seat by 349 votes but after counting 3,130 special votes it was determined that Carmel Sepuloni had won by 11 votes. The National Party requested a judicial recount due to the tightness of the competition (Labour did the same in Christchurch Central, where the Labour candidate was beaten by 45 votes). The outcome of Waitakere's recount was released on 17 December 2011, returning Paula Bennett with a nine-vote majority. The margin was two orders of magnitude smaller than the number of voters who voted while not being on the electoral role, 393.
Read more about this topic: Waitakere (New Zealand Electorate)
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