East Coast settlements moving into Napier electorate under proposal, residents opposed

National Party East Coast chairwoman Pat Seymour says it is disappointing to have more voters potentially moving to the Napier electorate, where there is no shared "community of interest".

About 1300 East Coast voters in Te Karaka, Manutūkē, Pātūtahi and Mōtū could shift to the Napier electorate for the 2026 general election.

Te Karaka resident Jamie Simpson says the settlement already struggles with representation in government, and believes the proposed electorate boundary changes are “probably another nail in the coffin for this area”.

The Representation Commission released its recommendations from a review of electorate boundaries this week, including proposed boundaries that are now released for public submissions.

The Representation Commission regularly redraws the boundaries of electorates after each five-year population Census to ensure it has roughly the same number of people in each.

As well as population figures, the commission also considers factors such as communities of interest, infrastructure that links communities, topographic features and projected variations in the population over the next five years.

Te Karaka is 31km by road from Gisborne and 231km by road from Napier.

Manutūkē and Pātūtahi are both just under 15km from Gisborne by road and just over 200km from Napier.

Mōtū is just under 80km from Gisborne by road, but 282km from Napier.

Change is proposed for the boundary between the East Coast and Napier electorates for the 2026 general election.

“We’ve been plagued with a lot lately,” Simpson said of Te Karaka, devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023.

He said there had been problems with central and local government.

“We don’t have any local representation.

“Putting us under Napier is probably another nail in the coffin for this area.”

Simpson said he understood the rationale behind redrawn boundaries based on population, but he believed decisions on electorate boundaries needed to be made by “boots on the ground who knew the area”.

“Our regional centre is Gisborne.”

Police, civil defence, and Fire and Emergency New Zealand were all located in Gisborne, he said.

“Why would we be included in Napier?”

Simpson said he was sure residents in the impacted townships would make submissions to the Representation Commission.

National Party East Coast chairwoman Pat Seymour said the branch would make a submission, maintaining that the townships should remain within East Coast for reasons of community interest.

She said Matawai was already in the Napier electorate, the East Coast was now losing more areas to the Napier electorate and those townships had no community of interests with Napier.

“We are disappointed the commission wants to move 1300 people to Napier,” Seymour said.

“We would have preferred to have retained all areas west of Lavenham Rd, up to and including Matawai.”

Seymour said the Te Puke East branch of the East Coast National Party, incorporating Maketū, Paengaroa and Pongakawa, would prefer to be in the Bay of Plenty electorate, which is proposed to be both redrawn and renamed Mount Maunganui.

National would like the East Coast electorate to “move back slightly south to the current Gisborne District Council boundary and give away that top end to the Bay of Plenty”.

Seymour said representation commission issues, such as population and electorate quotas, were understood.

“But it’s really disappointing for our population.”

For the 2026 general election, the 48 North Island electorates will have a population quota of 69,875 while the South Island electorates, fixed at 16, have a quota of 70,037.

The proposed redrawn East Coast electorate would have a population quota of 68,768, which is within the allowable 5% plus or minus variation from the quota at -1.65%.

Napier is outside the 5% allowable variance, which is why the commission has recommended the move of Manutūkē, Te Karaka, Pātūtahi and Mōtū to the Napier electorate.

The seven Māori electorates have a population quota of 74,367.

Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is 5.5% under quota.

The commission has recommended 3300 voters in the southern half of Hutt City, including Boulcott, Epuni, Petone, Moera and the eastern bays communities down to Muritai south of Eastbourne, be moved from Te Tai Tonga to Ikaroa-Rāwhiti.

There would be 49 list seats in the next Parliament.

Objections to the proposals can be made up to April 27 at representation.commission@elections.govt.nz or at Representation Commission, PO Box 3220, Wellington 6141.

Submitters should indicate whether they would like to appear at a public hearing between June 9 and 18.

The final report on electorate boundaries will be presented to the Governor-General on August 8.

Comment has been sought from the East Coast branch of the Labour Party.