Significant changes to city seats

VOTERS in St Clair and Caversham ‘‘moved’’ to Taieri and Clyde and Alexandra became part of Southland, following extensive change to electorate boundaries released yesterday.

Three of the five southern electorates had their names changed by the Representation Commission. Dunedin North is now Dunedin, Dunedin South is now Taieri and CluthaSouthland has become Southland.

Former Dunedin South MP David Benson Pope, who submitted against the commission’s now confirmed draft plan to move the Otago Peninsula to the Dunedin North electorate, said his opposition to that move had not wavered.

‘‘I think it’s illogical,’’ he said. ‘‘I also think it’s a shame the name Dunedin South has gone. That marks the loss of a lot of political history, and it raises the question of what the future might be in respect of the Dunedin electorates, and whether the Representation Commission might move to create one tight urban electorate.’’

The Representation Commission sets electorate boundaries for the following two elections, so the borders announced yesterday will be used in this September’s election — should it go ahead as scheduled — and in 2023.

The Electoral Act mandates that there must be 16 seats in the South Island, which usually requires substantial shifts of boundaries to keep population numbers in each electorate roughly equal.

‘‘The boundaries in all five electorates in the Otago and Southland regions have had to be adjusted as they were either under or over the 5% population quota,’’ the commission said.

‘‘The population of the electorates together was almost exactly on quota, so they have been balanced by moving population from the electorates with too much population to those with too little.’’

Notable boundary changes included Waitaki losing Alexandra and Clyde to the renamed Southland seat, and Geraldine remaining in Waitaki despite strenuous efforts by locals to shift north to Rangitata.

People power was more successful in the Far South, with

Winton and the Catlins remaining in Southland rather than being moved to Invercargill, as proposed.

Invercargill was instead expanded to the west to incorporate Tuatapere.

The draft boundaries for those seats and CluthaSouthland resulted in the division of Clutha among several electorates, to the great disquiet of local mayors.

The commission report yesterday retained the borders as

originally proposed.

‘‘The commission received a number of well thoughtthrough submissions with alternative boundaries thought out for these electorates,’’ its report said.

‘‘Some of these alternatives resulted in less overall change but would have resulted in significant consequential adjustments to neighbouring electorates.’’

Clutha Mayor Bryan Cadogan said he had fought hard to keep

the Clutha in a single electorate and was disappointed to see the commission retain its plan to divide it among three different electorates.

‘‘The process made it very difficult to actually make changes,’’ he said.

‘‘I still think we had a genuine argument, but in the end I suppose it comes down to priorities, and my priorities were obviously different from theirs.’’