Final electoral boundary changes loom as Ōhāriu faces likely disappearance
Friday, 8 August 2025
Ōhāriu MP Greg O’Connor was on “Granddad duties” on Thursday night, which he described as “the best distraction I could possibly have” ahead of the looming news of final electorate boundaries for the next election.
“I’m pretty resigned to the fact that Ōhāriu will be disappearing in a puff of smoke over Mount Kaukau,” O’Connor told The Post.
The Representation Commission released its draft electorate boundary report in March, reducing North Island electorates from 49 to 48 - the first time an electorate has been removed since MMP was introduced in 1996.
It proposed two new Wellington electorates ‒ Kenepuru and Kapiti ‒ to replace the seats of Ōhāriu, Mana, Ōtaki in the 2026 general election.
The proposed Kenepuru electorate takes in Porirua, which was in Mana, most of Ōhāriu but loses Khandallah, Ngaio and Wadestown to Wellington Central.
Final decisions will come out at 11am on Friday, and will apply from next year’s election.
O’Connor said the sentiment around Ōhāriu being removed was, “it's a real shame”.
“A good old understated Ōhāriu expression.
“It is sad. As I'm around the electorate, I'm getting a lot of people who are too.
“There's a bit of a disappointment that it's always been centred around that Khandallah, Johnsonville, Newlands area, and that all those suburbs now become different electorates.”
Previously, O’Connor said he and Mana’s Barbara Edmonds would make a decision together on running for the new electorate. O’Connor pointed to Edmonds’ performance in Parliament, saying “I’m never going to take her on”.
If he would go on the Labour list for the next election if Ōhāriu was to go, O’Connor said, “these are all decisions that I have to make”.
“Life marches on. And it's not really about me or the MP, it's really about the good folk of Ōhāriu.
“They have had two fairly omnipresent and pretty hard working MPs that have been very, very present and visible in the electorate.
Asked if he would be having a toast to Ōhāriu, O’Connor said he and the local Labour Electorate Committee “will definitely be having a little nice little moment”.
Ōhāriu over the years has had many names and taken many forms ‒ but it hasn’t had many MPs. In 1984 then 30-year-old Peter Dunne ran successfully for Labour against National’s incumbent Hugh Templeton and the New Zealand Party leader Bob Jones.
He held the seat until he retired in 2017. O’Connor won that year. .
Other changes proposed are for Kapiti to encompass from Plimmerton to Ōtaki, and take in Whitby. Kapiti was in use as an electorate name before MMP was adopted, from 1972 to 1996.
There were also changes in the other Wellington electorates: the Rongotai boundary shifts north ‒ gaining Mount Cook and Brooklyn.
Wellington Central also moves north to include Wadestown, Ngaio and Khandallah.
In the Hutt, Hutt South takes in part of Newlands, and Remutaka goes south to take in an area around Epuni.