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Whangaparāoa has emphatically re-elected National’s Mark Mitchell to be its MP for a fifth term, handing him the biggest majority in the country.
Mitchell has represented the area ever since taking over from Lockwood Smith in 2011.
His lead as a local candidate, which had hovered around the 20,000 mark, was slashed to just 7823 in 2020 with a change to electorate boundaries and voters swinging to Labour. Last election Labour also got more party votes than National in this electorate.
This election, as elsewhere in the country, that swing was reversed with the National party 14,305 votes ahead of its nearest rival, Labour, in Whangaparāoa and Mitchell 19,300 votes ahead of Labour’s local candidate, Estefania Muller Pallarès.
Votes for Act NZ remained almost the same as in 2020 – 4827, coming in third in Whangaparāoa.
The Greens were fourth in this area, only around 100 votes ahead of NZ First. In the candidate stakes, however, the Greens Lorraine Newman was around 600 votes ahead of Act’s Simon Angelo – NZ First’s candidate Janina Massee having withdrawn her candidacy.
Among National’s campaign promises was to 4-lane the O Mahurangi Penlink road and to revisit the tolling of the road, a decision made by former Transport Minister Michael Wood.
Speaking the morning after the election, Mitchell said with O Mahurangi Penlink already under construction, those changes were top of his priority list and will no doubt require some tough conversations with Waka Kotahi.
He spent election night at a function at Northern Arena in Silverdale before heading to Shed 10 to join the National celebrations.
He says he never takes a win in Whangaparāoa for granted.
“You have to earn that support,” he says.
With a Ministerial position, in Police, likely, he says he will have to make sure his electorate office in Ōrewa is able to provide the service the community wants.
“I learned the importance of that balance of Wellington with back home when I was Minister of Defence,” he says.
Second place candidate Estefania Muller Pallarès says she knew she was in the toughest blue seat, but is very proud of the movement that she and her team built on the ground.
“You have definitely not seen the last of me,” she says.
Indications from preliminary results are that the voter turnout in Whangaparāoa was a little down on last election, with special votes still to be counted.
Muller Pallarès has a focus on encouraging the youth vote and says she will be interested to see the numbers, but judging from the turnout to local election candidate events, there is “some work to do” in getting local young people to vote.
Note: These are preliminary results, with official results to be declared on November 3. For final results go to www.electionresults.govt.nz
