Labour's Greg O'Connor plans to stick around even if his Ōhāriu seat is carved up

Labour's Greg O'Connor is vowing to stick around in 2026, despite his Ōhāriu seat set to be carved up.

Under proposals released by the Representation Commission, the electorates of Ōhāriu, Mana, and Ōtaki will be scrapped, and replaced by two new seats: Kenepuru, and Kāpiti.

The reduction means there will be one fewer electorate seat at the next election, with an extra list seat to make up for it.

The lower North Island would go through the most change, as the populations of all the current electorates are below quota (the average population in an electorate, calculated by StatsNZ using information from the 2023 Census and electoral roll data).

Under the proposals, Ōhāriu would lose Wadestown, Ngaio, Khandallah, and Broadmeadows to Wellington Central (which would lose Brooklyn and Mount Cook to neighbouring Rongotai).

Newlands and Horowiki would become part of Hutt South.

And Johnsonville, Churton Park, Glenside, and the southern part of Tawa would go into the new Kenepuru electorate.

The rest of Kenepuru would consist of northern Tawa, Porirua city centre, eastern Porirua, and Tītahi Bay, which all come from the Mana electorate.

The remainder of Mana (Raumati, Paekākāriki, Camborne, Plimmerton, Paremata, and Whitby) will form the new Kāpiti electorate, along with Ōtaki, Waikanae, and Paraparaumu.

Labour is still processing the changes, with O'Connor and Mana MP Barbara Edmonds left to work out what electorate they might run in, and whether it means they have to end up challenging each other.

In 2020 and 2023, O'Connor took himself off the Labour list, relying on winning the seat to re-enter Parliament.

At the last election, he fought off the 'blue wave' and a challenge from National's deputy leader Nicola Willis.

Regardless of the outcome of the proposals, he said he would stick around.

"Of course I will!" he said.

"I'm just a young man, politically. I've only been in this game for six years, seven years. There's a lot of life left in this old dog yet."

O'Connor and Edmonds came out to speak to media together, and indicated they were ruling out challenging each other for a seat.

"We're a team. We've always been a team. You'll see lots of events throughout the Wellington region where both Greg and I turn up together, and it's not necessarily in our electorate. We genuinely like each other, so it's all good," Edmonds said.

"And you've seen Barb in the House. I'd never take her on anyway," O'Connor responded.

Edmonds said she had already received feedback from her Mana constituents, who said they were sad, as it was the first time since MMP the electorate would be broken up.

Willis, meanwhile, who contested Wellington Central in 2017 and 2020 before switching to Ōhāriu in 2023, said it was too soon to make any judgements about where she may or may not run in 2026.

Speaking to the proposals generally, she said they would affect many members of Parliament.

"It will change things for individual representatives, who in some cases will take on new communities to represent, and sometimes will lose communities that they very much enjoy representing," she said.

In Johnsonville, smack-bang in the middle of Ōhāriu, residents were not thrilled with the proposal.

"We've always been kind of politically savvy, I believe. So to get rid of Ōhāriu as an electorate, that's kind of rude," said Tracy Hurst-Porter, a co-ordinator at the Collective Community Hub.

Local resident Carl said he did not really care, but he liked O'Connor.

"Don't know why they'd want to merge. Why change it when it's working perfectly?" he said.

Jacqueline Ward was disappointed Johnsonville would move to the edge of an electorate, rather than at the centre of one.

"We would just be ignored. We are ignored now, let's not make it any worse," she said.

Ōhāriu has been a pivotal seat, with a rich political history.

For years, it kept the United Future party alive, electing Peter Dunne as its representative.

Dunne told RNZ he was sad to see Ōhāriu's demise.

"I had a lot of fun representing it, 33 years. There's a strong sense of community here which I don't see will be reflected necessarily in the new electorate make-ups because of the ways the boundaries have been drawn," he said.

There had been suggestions that Auckland would be the one to lose an electorate, with Epsom tipped to be a potential seat on the chopping block.

Ultimately, the Representation Commission's chair Judge Kevin Kelly said while the lower North Island electorates' populations were projected to fall further, Auckland's population was predicted to grow.

He said the potential of taking a seat out now and adding another in later meant it was a better option to focus on the lower North Island first.

Auckland does, however, have a large number of changes proposed.

The New Lynn, Kelston, and Te Atatū electorates would be re-configured, with the proposed new names of Waitākere, Glendene, and Rānui.

There are a few suburban switcheroos between Auckland Central, Mount Albert, and Mount Roskill.

Panmure-Ōtāhuhu sheds Panmure to just become Ōtāhuhu, while Takanini's been growing so much it has to lose some people to surrounding electorates.

Epsom MP David Seymour said the commission had done a good job in difficult circumstances, but was pleased Epsom would be staying.

"I think it'll be a great relief for the people of Grafton to come over to Epsom and get some high-quality representation," he said, in an apparent dig at Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick.

The Green Party co-leader, meanwhile, said her party was prepared for whatever outcome.

In addition to Auckland Central, the Greens hold Wellington Central and Rongotai. All three seats have had their boundaries re-drawn.

"No electorate belongs to any politician or any political party. It belongs to the constituency, to the people of that area. I want to be clear, that when it comes to any potential changes, that ultimately it comes down to ground game," she said.

The proposals are not final, with a series of submissions and public meetings set down over the next few months, before the final decision in August.

Edmonds and O'Connor said Labour would make a collective submission on the boundary changes across the country.

Te Pāti Māori also planned to submit on the proposals.

There would be no change to the number of Māori electorates, although Ikaroa-Rāwhiti would gain a small part of Lower Hutt from Te Tai Tonga.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the surge of people joining the Māori roll at the end of last year was not taken into account.

"I think it's really important that we get that message across, that we were 0.2 percent shy of an eighth seat," she said.

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