Dunedin South

The previous electoral redistribution was undertaken in 1875 for the 1875–1876 election. In the six years since, New Zealand's European population had increased by 65%. In the 1881 electoral redistribution, the House of Representatives increased the number of European representatives to 91 (up from 84 since the 1875–76 election). The number of Māori electorates was held at four. The House further decided that electorates should not have more than one representative, which led to 35 new electorates being formed, including Dunedin South, and two electorates that had previously been abolished to be recreated. This necessitated a major disruption to existing boundaries.^[1]

As the name suggests, the electorate was based on the southern suburbs of Dunedin. It stretched out westwards to take in towns on the Taieri Plains such as Mosgiel, Green Island and Fairfield. The Otago Peninsula was also in the electorate.

The most recent Dunedin South electorate was created in 1996 as one of the original 65 MMP electorates, as a merger between St Kilda and a large part of Dunedin West. Until the 2008 election, it was enlarged at every electoral boundary review, but in the 2013 review, its boundaries were kept.^[2] Middlemarch was first included in the electorate for the 2008 election; other localities include:

• Southern Dunedin (48,000)
• Mosgiel (13,000)
• Outram (642)

The electorate was abolished at the 2019/20 electoral redistribution, with the majority of the electorate being included in a recreated Taieri, although the Otago Peninsula was incorporated into the Dunedin electorate.

The electorate was first established for the 1881 election and abolished after three parliamentary terms in 1890, when several Dunedin electorates were amalgamated to form the City of Dunedin electorate.^[3] During the nine years of its first existence, the electorate was represented by two MPs, Henry Fish (1881–1884 and 1887–1890)^[4] and James Gore (1884–1887).^[5]

Dunedin South was re-established after the abolition of the City of Dunedin electorate for the 1905 election.^[3] The first representative was James Arnold, who was an independent liberal and who served until the end of the parliamentary term in 1908, when he successfully contested Dunedin Central.^[6]

Thomas Sidey of the Liberal Party who had since a Caversham by election represented Caversham won the 1908 election for Dunedin South. He represented the electorate for six parliamentary terms until 1928.^[7] In 1919, Tom Paul nearly won the seat for Labour, losing by only 84 votes.

Sidey was succeeded by William Taverner of the United Party in the 1928 election.^[8] At the next election in 1931, the electorate was won by Fred Jones of the Labour Party. Jones held the electorate until 1946, when it was abolished, and successfully stood in St Kilda that year.^[9]

The electorate was re-established for the 1996 election and won by Michael Cullen, who later became Finance minister. Cullen had previously represented St Kilda (1981–1996). At the next election in 1999, Cullen stood as a list candidate only and was succeeded by David Benson-Pope as the electorate MP. After three parliamentary terms, Benson-Pope was not selected by the Labour Party as their candidate, but Clare Curran was chosen instead. Curran has represented the electorate since the 2008 election.

The city of Dunedin is a New Zealand Labour Party stronghold; The last National MP elected from a Dunedin constituency was Richard Walls in 1975. However, in 2011, National Party candidate, Jo Hayes, reduced the incumbent, Clare Curran's majority from 6449 in 2008^[10] to 4175,^[11] and National gained a plurality of the party vote in Dunedin South by 1837 votes.^[11] The winning of the party vote was unprecedented in Dunedin South, which was seen, pre 2011, as a Labour Party stronghold. However the predecessor seat of St Kilda was represented by Jim Barnes of the National Party between 1951 and 1957.^[12] In the 2014 election, Curran was successful against National's Hamish Walker.^[13]

In mid April 2020, it was announced that Dunedin South would be reconstituted as the Taieri electorate. The Otago peninsula was transferred to the Dunedin electorate while the new Taieri electorate would include South Dunedin and South Otago, with the latter being transferred from the former Clutha-Southland electorate.^[14]

Key  Independent  Liberal–Labour  Liberal  United  Labour  National

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

¹Hayes was elected from the party list in January 2014 following the resignation of Katrina Shanks.

2017 general election: Dunedin South[15]
Notes:		Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	Labour	Y Clare Curran		21,404	54.11	+5.55	19,183	48.13	+15.00
	National	Matt Gregory		12,687	32.08	−6.18	14,164	35.53	−4.17
	Green	Shane Gallagher		2,002	5.06	−2.45	2,362	5.92	−6.32
	NZ First	Kerry Maria Rushton		1,591	4.02	—	2,625	6.58	−2.49
	Opportunities	Lindsay Smith		1,067	2.70	—	967	2.42	—
	Legalise Cannabis	Adrian McDermott		332	1.59	—	90	0.23	−0.22
	ACT	Daniel Doughty		128	0.32	—	116	0.29	−0.04
	Māori Party						83	0.21	−0.04
	Conservative						54	0.14	−2.78
	Ban 1080						39	0.10	−0.10
	United Future						26	0.07	−0.10
	Outdoors						20	0.05	—
	People's Party						20	0.05	—
	Mana Party						6	0.02	—
	Internet						5	0.01	—
	Democrats						4	0.01	−0.20
Informal votes				343			103
Total valid votes				39,554			39,867
	Labour hold		Majority	8,717	22.03	+11.73

2014 general election: Dunedin South[16]
Notes:		Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	Labour	Y Clare Curran		18,182	48.56	−0.33	12,518	33.13	−1.84
	National	Hamish Walker		14,324	38.26	+1.49	15,003	39.70	−0.48
	Green	Shane Gallagher		2,813	7.51	−1.77	4,626	12.24	−1.37
	Conservative	Cindy Kerr		727	1.94	+1.94	1,104	2.92	+1.44
	Legalise Cannabis	Julian Crawford		453	1.21	+1.21	171	0.45	±0.00
	Democrats	Warren Voight		234	0.62	−0.07	80	0.21	−0.15
	Internet	Andrew Lepine		177	0.47	+0.47
	ACT	Colin Nicholls		143	0.38	−0.24	125	0.33	−0.27
	NZ First						3,429	9.07	+1.92
	Internet Mana						307	0.81	+0.63[a]
	Māori Party						95	0.25	−0.05
	Ban 1080						77	0.20	+0.20
	United Future						63	0.17	−0.36
	Civilian						18	0.05	+0.05
	Focus						7	0.02	+0.02
	Independent Coalition						5	0.01	+0.01
Informal votes				389			161
Total valid votes				37,442			37,789
Turnout				37,831	81.60	+4.60
	Labour hold		Majority	3,858	10.30	−1.82

2011 general election: Dunedin South[11]
Notes:		Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	Labour	Y Clare Curran		16,844	48.89	-3.40	12,326	34.97	-11.76
	National	Jo Hayes		12,669	36.77	+2.05	14,163	40.18	+5.97
	Green	Shane Gallagher		3,197	9.28	+2.44	4,798	13.61	+5.64
	NZ First	Randall Ratana		979	2.84	+2.84	2,522	7.15	+2.59
	Democrats	Warren Voight		238	0.69	+0.22	126	0.36	+0.18
	ACT	Kimberly Hannah		215	0.62	-0.81	210	0.60	-1.51
	Restore All Things in Christ	Robert Wansink		167	0.48	+0.18
	Alliance	Kay Murray		142	0.41	-0.13	58	0.16	-0.03
	Conservative						520	1.48	+1.48
	United Future						186	0.53	-0.21
	Legalise Cannabis						157	0.45	+0.06
	Māori Party						107	0.30	-0.13
	Mana						62	0.18	+0.18
	Libertarianz						16	0.05	+0.01
Informal votes				830			318
Total valid votes				34,451			35,569
	Labour hold		Majority	4,175	12.12	-5.45

Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 45,818^[17]

2005 general election: Dunedin South[18]
Notes:		Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	Labour	Y David Benson-Pope		20,033	57.00		20,348	57.13
	National	Conway Powell		9,393	26.73		9,692	27.21
	Green	Peter Thomlinson		2,200	6.26		1,926	5.41
	NZ First	Alan Heward		1,145	3.26		1,563	4.39
	United Future	Pauline Moffat		795	2.26		879	2.47
	Progressive	Martin Vaughan		672	1.91		500	1.40
	Destiny	Brent Daglish		400	1.14		128	0.36
	ACT	Alan Wilden		228	0.65		266	0.75
	Alliance	Chris Ford		189	0.54		52	0.15
	Restore All Things in Christ	Robert Wansink		91	0.26
	Legalise Cannabis						90	0.25
	Māori Party						77	0.22
	Christian Heritage						35	0.10
	Democrats						30	0.08
	Direct Democracy						8	0.12
	Libertarianz						8	0.02
	One NZ						6	0.02
	99 MP						4	0.01
	Family Rights						4	0.01
	RONZ						3	0.01
Informal votes				398			127
Total valid votes				35,146			35,619
	Labour hold		Majority	10,640	30.30

2002 general election: Dunedin South
Notes:		Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	Labour	Y David Benson-Pope		20,398	63.31	+12.41	18,311	55.89	+5.37
	National	Paul Foster-Bell		5,674	17.61		5,004	15.27	-7.50
	Green	Fliss Butcher		2,023	6.28		2,036	6.21	+2.19
	United Future	Jesse O'Brien		1,338	4.15		1,923	5.87
	ACT	Matthew Cain Dwyer		859	2.67		1,144	3.49	+0.06
	Progressive	Russell Edwards		750	2.33		765	2.23
	Alliance	Justin Wilson		601	1.87		564	1.72	-9.98
	Christian Heritage	Graham Bruce Aldridge		576	1.79		356	1.09	-0.87
	NZ First						2,016	6.15	+4.03
	ORNZ						415	1.27
	Legalise Cannabis						213	0.65	-0.34
	One NZ						9	0.03
	Mana Māori						8	0.02	0.00
	NMP						1	0.00	-0.02
Informal votes				521			97
Total valid votes				32,219			32,765
	Labour hold		Majority	14,724	45.70	+15.81

Table footnotes:

• McRobie, Alan (1989). Electoral Atlas of New Zealand. Wellington: GP Books. ISBN 0-477-01384-8.
• Scholefield, Guy (1950) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1949 (3rd ed.). Wellington: Govt. Printer.
• Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.

• Electorate Profile Parliamentary Library