Christchurch Central is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate in the South Island city of Christchurch. The electorate was established for the 1946 election and, until 2011 had always been won by the Labour Party. Since 2008, the incumbent was Brendon Burns but the election night results for the resulted in a tie; the special vote results combined with a judicial recount revealed a 47-vote majority for Nicky Wagner, the National list MP based in the electorate. Wagner significantly increased her winning margin in the after having declared the electorate "unwinnable" for National earlier in the year following a boundary review.
The Christchurch Central electorate was created in 1946. Labour held the seat for the next 65 years, though a high turnout for the Alliance saw Tim Barnett's 1996 majority come in at under a thousand. The incumbent, Brendon Burns, had a majority in the 2008 election of also just under one thousand. The first representative was Robert Macfarlane, who had earlier represented the Christchurch South electorate. He held Christchurch Central until the, when he retired. He was succeeded by Bruce Barclay, who died in office in 1979. This caused the held on 18 August, which was won by Geoffrey Palmer. Palmer eventually went on to become Prime Minister. Palmer retired at the and was succeeded by Lianne Dalziel. At the, i.e. with the advent of MMP, Dalziel did not contest an electorate but stood as a list candidate only. Tim Barnett succeeded her and held the electorate until the, when he retired. Brendon Burns succeeded Barnett. The election night results for the resulted in a tie; Burns and Nicky Wagner of the National Party received 10,493 votes each. The outcome of the election thus depended on the special votes. This was the first time a tie result had been achieved since 1928. When the final vote count was announced on 10 December, Wagner was declared the winner with a majority of 45 over Burns, making the result the second-smallest majority after. Due to the closeness of the results a judicial recount was held where Wagner's majority increased by 2 votes to 47. When draft electoral boundary changes were released, Wagner declared the electorate "unwinnable" for National. Although she was expected to not contest the 2014 general election, she announced at the end of January 2014 that she would try to defend her seat. Labour chose Tony Milne as their candidate for Christchurch Central. Wagner had a 2,420 majority over Milne. The Labour Party chose Duncan Webb as its candidate for the 2017 general election. He is a prominent lawyer and earthquake claims advocate.
Christchurch Central has been represented by eight MPs. Since its creation in 1946 until the 2011 general election it had been a safe seat for the Labour Party. It was then held by the National Party until the 2017 general election when it swung back to Labour. Key
List MPs
Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Christchurch Central electorate.
