Botany (New Zealand electorate)

Botany
Single-member general constituency for the New Zealand House of Representatives
Formation	2008
Region	Auckland Region
Character	Suburban
Term	3 years
Member for Botany
Christopher Luxon since 14 October 2023
Party	National
Previous MP	Jami-Lee Ross (Ind)
Party vote distribution

Botany is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. It was contested for the first time at the 2008 general election, and won by Pansy Wong for the National Party. Following Wong's resignation in late 2010, a by-election returned Jami-Lee Ross, who was confirmed by the voters in the 2011 general election. Ross left the National Party in October 2018 and became an independent. Ross did not contest the seat at the 2020 general election, and was succeeded by the new National candidate, Christopher Luxon, who became the party's leader in November 2021 and has served as prime minister since November 2023.

The Representation Commission established the electoral district of Botany after the 2006 New Zealand census due to high population growth in and around Auckland. The new electorate resulted from several sweeping changes to the electoral landscape of South Auckland:

• The southern end of Port Waikato was lanced and combined with the area around Clevedon township to form Hunua.
• The resultant change pulled the Clevedon electorate tighter around the city of Papakura for which the electorate is now named.
• In the north, Manukau East was pulled up through Otahuhu into Auckland City, in the process dropping the western suburbs of Flat Bush, East Tāmaki, Dannemora and Botany Downs, which combined with fragments of the Clevedon and Pakuranga electorates to form Botany.

Demographically, Botany is older than the rest of New Zealand, with over half of its population aged over 30; It has three times as many Chinese New Zealanders than the national average (33.5 versus 9.2%), and nearly twice as many Pasifika New Zealanders (13 to 7%), which makes Botany a minority-majority electorate. Botany has the highest number of people born overseas of any New Zealand electorate (49% in 2006), the most Buddhists in a New Zealand electorate and the highest number of one-family homes. The average income in the electorate is high, with over half of the electorate's residents earning over $50,000 a year.^{[citation needed]}

A 2005 academic survey assessing the voting behaviour of Asian New Zealanders^[1] showed a strong preference for the Labour Party, with a sizeable proportion prepared to vote for the National Party (47 to 40); it also showed that among Asian New Zealanders, the most important issues were the economy and law and order. This was demonstrated by a large anti-crime march (a crowd of 15,000 was estimated, with a significant number of these being Asian New Zealanders) was held in Auckland (on the streets of Botany) in July 2008 amidst claims of increasing violent crime in New Zealand targeted against its Asian population.^[2] The march's organiser Peter Low used his website to clarify his position, calling for harsher sentencing, victims' rights and zero "criminal rights".^[3]

Botany was first created for the 2008 general election, and won by Pansy Wong for the National Party.^{[citation needed]}

Both National and the ACT party stood Chinese New Zealanders as their candidates in 2008; Pansy Wong and Kenneth Wang, respectively. Labour chose Koro Tawa, an Auckland University lecturer. Raymond Huo, a Chinese-speaking lawyer, was initially mooted for the Labour nomination, but eventually chose to stand as a list-only candidate.^[4][5]

On 14 December 2010 it was announced that a by-election was to be held on 5 March 2011 due to the resignation of incumbent MP Pansy Wong.^[6] The electorate was won by Jami-Lee Ross from the New Zealand National Party.

In October 2018, Jami-Lee Ross resigned from the National Party and accused party leader Simon Bridges of breaching electoral law. Ross announced his intention to resign from parliament and run as an independent in the resulting by-election,^[7] however he later decided against resigning. Christopher Luxon won the National Party selection in November 2019.^[8]

On 15 September 2020 Ross announced he was no longer intending to contest the electorate, but will instead contest the upcoming election as a list only candidate for his newly formed party, Advance NZ.^[9] Luxon won the seat at the 2020 election as Ross was ejected from Parliament.

Key

  National   Independent

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

Key

  Labour   ACT

2023 general election: Botany[10]
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	%	±%
	National	Y Christopher Luxon		24,769	66.57	+14.11	22,239	58.74	+21.69
	Labour	Kharag Singh		8,432	22.66	-18.77	7,708	22.27	-25.21
	ACT	Bo Burns		1,959	5.26	+1.85	2,788	7.36	+0.56
	NZ Loyal	John Armstrong		624	1.67	—	280	0.73	—
	Animal Justice	Robert McNeil		428	1.15	—	98	0.25	–
	New Conservative	Dieuwe de Boer		300	0.80	-0.92	86	0.22	-1.44
	Green						2,212	5.84	+2.56
	NZ First						1,136	3.00	+1.57
	Opportunities						439	1.15	+0.33
	Te Pāti Māori						188	0.49	+0.30
	NewZeal						156	0.41	+0.18
	Freedoms NZ						127	0.33	–
	Legalise Cannabis						106	0.28	+0.08
	New Nation						37	0.09	–
	DemocracyNZ						29	0.07	–
	Women's Rights						27	0.07	–
	Leighton Baker Party						12	0.03	–
Informal votes				692			189
Total valid votes				37,204			37,857
	National hold		Majority	16,337	43.91	+33.38

2017 general election: Botany[13]
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	%	±%
	National	Y Jami-Lee Ross		21,378	61.63	−2.21	21,428	60.83	+1.41
	Labour	Tofik Mamedov		8,539	24.62	+1.72	10,279	29.18	+6.99
	Green	Julie Zhu		2,103	6.06	—	841	2.39	−1.95
	Māori Party	Wetex Kang		1,165	3.36	—	195	0.55	+0.34
	United Future	Damian Light		500	1.44	—	33	0.09	−0.06
	ACT	Sam Singh		330	0.95	—	209	0.59	−1.81
	NZ First						1,612	4.58	−0.84
	Opportunities						288	0.82	—
	Conservative						91	0.26	−4.25
	Legalise Cannabis						54	1.53	+1.26
	People's Party						44	0.12	—
	Outdoors						14	0.04	—
	Mana Party						12	0.03	—
	Internet						9	0.02	—
	Ban 1080						6	0.02	−0.02
	Democrats						2	0.01	—
Informal votes				673			110
Total valid votes				34,688			35,227
Turnout				35,658	72.63[14]	+0.78
	National hold		Majority	12,839	37.01	−3.93

2014 general election: Botany[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	%	±%
	National	Y Jami-Lee Ross		21,044	63.84	−0.19	20,016	59.42	−1.71
	Labour	Tofik Mamedov		7,549	22.90	−2.45	7,473	22.19	−1.59
	Conservative	Paul Young		3,053	9.26	+1.57	1,519	4.51	+1.83
	Independent	David McCormick		668	2.03	+2.03
	NZ First						1,825	5.42	+1.02
	Green						1,461	4.34	−0.06
	ACT						808	2.40	+0.75
	Internet Mana						204	0.61	+0.36[a]
	Legalise Cannabis						90	0.27	−0.02
	Māori Party						71	0.21	−0.08
	United Future						49	0.15	−0.17
	Ban 1080						12	0.04	+0.04
	Independent Coalition						9	0.03	+0.03
	Civilian						8	0.02	+0.02
	Focus						6	0.02	+0.02
	Democrats						5	0.01	−0.01
Informal votes				648			128
Total valid votes				32,962			33,684
Turnout				33,812	71.00	+3.25
	National hold		Majority	13,495	40.94	+2.26

2011 general election: Botany[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	%	±%
	National	Y Jami-Lee Ross		17,780	64.03	+7.81	17,749	61.13	-0.11
	Labour	Chao-Fu Wu		7,039	25.35	+4.29	7,111	24.49	-0.69
	Conservative	Paul Young		2,135	7.69	+7.69	777	2.68	+2.68
	ACT	Lyn Murphy		631	2.27	-12.98	478	1.65	-3.19
	United Future	Ram Parkash		185	0.67	-0.72	94	0.32	-0.37
	NZ First						1,278	4.40	+2.26
	Green						1,277	4.40	+2.01
	Legalise Cannabis						85	0.29	+0.10
	Māori Party						84	0.29	-0.02
	Mana						72	0.25	+0.25
	Libertarianz						13	0.04	+0.01
	Alliance						9	0.03	+0.01
	Democrats						7	0.02	+0.02
Informal votes				1,069			238
Total valid votes				27,770			29,034
	National hold		Majority	10,741	38.68	+3.52

Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 43,204^[17]

Official results of the 5 March by-election.^[18]

• Electorate Profile Archived 22 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine Parliamentary Library