Northland (New Zealand electorate)

Northland is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The electorate was established for the 1996 election. It was represented by National Party MP Mike Sabin until his resignation on 30 January 2015. This forced a by-election in March 2015 which was won by NZ First Party leader Winston Peters.

Northland is the northernmost general electorate of New Zealand. The electorate encompasses the entire Far North District and Kaipara District, and a small rural section of Whangarei District. At the 2008 election, the town of Wellsford became part of Northland due to heavy population growth in the Rodney seat. No boundary adjustments were undertaken in the subsequent 2013/14 redistribution.

The Northland electorate was created ahead of the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional voting in 1996. It contains all of the Far North electorate (called Bay of Islands before 1993), and a large section of the old Hobson seat.

Former Bay of Islands and then Far North MP John Carter was elected MP for Northland in 1996, and was returned at every election until the 2008 election. Carter left Parliament in June 2011 to take up a post as New Zealand's High Commissioner to the Cook Islands. His departure did not result in a by-election, as the vacancy occurred within six months of the next general election. In May 2011 Mike Sabin was selected as the National Party candidate to replace Carter. Sabin had a majority of 11,362 and 9,300 votes in 2011 and 2014, respectively. In December 2014 New Zealand media reported that Northland MP Mike Sabin was under investigation by police over an assault complaint. The reports were not confirmed by the New Zealand Police, the Prime Minister or Sabin himself. Sabin resigned from parliament on 30 January 2015 with immediate effect "due to personal issues that were best dealt with outside Parliament." The resignation forced a by-election in the Northland electorate.

...
Wikipedia