The Tally Room

East Coast Bays is a National Party electorate in the northern suburbs of Auckland. East Coast Bays covers a very conservative area, and on paper the seat is very safe for Foreign Minister Murray McCully, who has sat as a National MP representing the area...

Te Tai Tonga is a Māori electorate covering all of the South Island and most of the Wellington region. The electorate was won by the Māori Party's Rahui Katene in 2008, and won back by Labour's Rino Tirikatene in 2011. Tirikatene holds the seat by an 8.8%...

Te Atatū is a marginal Labour seat in the western suburbs of Auckland, covering the Te Atatu Peninsula and the suburbs of Glendene Henderson, Lincoln, Ranui, Swanson and Te Atatu South. Phil Twyford won the seat in 2011, with a margin of 18.4%. The recent redistribution abolished the...

West Coast-Tasman is a large marginal Labour seat covering most of the western coast of the South Island, including Greymouth, Westport, Murchison, Takaka and Motueka. West Coast-Tasman was Labour-held from 1999 to 2008, when it was won by the National Party. The seat was won back...

Mana is a marginal Labour electorate covering suburbs north of Wellington, which is held by Labour MP Kris Faafoi by a 6.6% margin. Faafoi won the seat in a 2010 by-election. The seat has been held by Labour since its creation in 1996 but the...

Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post about the Independent Local Government Electoral Review Panel in Victoria, chaired by former federal Liberal MP Petro Georgiou. In particular I focused on recommendations to modify the local government franchise, by extending the right to vote...

Wigram is a marginal Labour seat in the western suburbs of Christchurch. The electorate was held since 1996 by Jim Anderton, a former Labour MP who had left the party in the late 1980s and went on to found the Alliance. The Alliance crumbled before...

Maungakiekie is a marginal National seat in the inner south-east of Auckland. The electorate has been held by National MP Sam Lotu-Iiga since 2008, and he currently holds the seat by a 5.7% margin. The seat was held from 1999 to 2008 by Labour, and is...

A week from tomorrow, voters in Scotland will be voting in a historic referendum to decide if the country should become independent from the rest of the United Kingdom. Earlier this week, the 'Yes' campaign took the lead in the polls for the first time...

Waimakariri is a marginal National seat covering the northern fringe of Christchurch and nearby areas. The seat was held by Labour's Clayton Cosgrove from 1999 to 2011. Sitting National MP Kate Wilkinson is retiring, but Cosgrove (who has held a list seat since 2011) will...