The 1996 New Zealand general election was held on 12 October 1996 to determine the composition of the 45th New Zealand Parliament. It was notable for being the first election to be held under the new mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system, and produced a parliament considerably more diverse than previous elections. Under the new MMP system, 65 members were elected in single-member districts by first-past-the-post voting, while a further 55 "top-up" members were allocated from closed lists to achieve a proportional distribution based on each party's share of the nationwide party vote.
Sir David Cunningham Carter is a New Zealand National Party politician who served as the 29th Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 2013 to 2017 and as a Cabinet Minister in the Fourth and Fifth National Governments. He represented the Selwyn electorate in the 44th Parliament and the Banks Peninsula electorate in the 45th Parliament. He served as a list MP from 1999 until he retired at the 2020 election.
Ruth Suzanne Dyson is a former New Zealand politician. She was a Labour Party Member of Parliament from 1993 to 2020. She represented the Port Hills electorate from the 2008 election election to 2020. She also held a number of senior offices in the Labour Party, including president.
Aoraki was a New Zealand parliamentary electorate that existed for four parliamentary terms from 1996 to 2008. It was held by Jim Sutton of the Labour Party for three terms, and the remaining term by Jo Goodhew of the National Party. It was located in the South Island, covering southern Canterbury and northern Otago. It was named after the mountain Aoraki / Mount Cook.
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 2011 election 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 2014 election after having declared the electorate "unwinnable" for National earlier in the year following a boundary review. At the 2017 election Wagner lost the seat to Labour's Duncan Webb, who retained it at the 2020 election.
Coromandel is a New Zealand electoral division returning one member to the House of Representatives. It is currently represented by Scott Simpson, a member of the National Party.
Dunedin South is a former New Zealand parliamentary electorate. It first existed from 1881 to 1890, and subsequently from 1905 to 1946. In 1996, the electorate was re-established for the introduction of MMP, before being abolished in 2020.
Hamilton East is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate.
Ilam is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate. Formed for the 1996 election, it was held by Gerry Brownlee of the National Party until the 2020 election, when Sarah Pallett of the Labour Party unseated Brownlee in an upset victory. The seat reverted to National when it was won by Hamish Campbell in the 2023 election.
Rodney was a New Zealand parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the House of Representatives. The last MP for Rodney was Mark Mitchell of the National Party. He held this position from 2011 until the electorate was replaced with Whangaparāoa in 2020. Mitchell stood for and won that seat.
Whangārei is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate that was first created for the 1972 election. The electorate is usually a reasonably safe National seat, and was held for long periods by John Banks (1981–1999) and Phil Heatley (1999–2014), before being won in the 2014 election by Shane Reti. In the 2020 election Reti narrowly lost the seat to Labour's Emily Henderson. Reti would reclaim the seat at the 2023 election with a huge majority.
Waipareira was a New Zealand parliamentary electorate that existed for one parliamentary term from 1996 to 1999. Located in West Auckland, it was held by Brian Neeson of the New Zealand National Party, who had narrowly beaten Labour's Chris Carter.
Port Hills was a parliamentary electorate of New Zealand that existed for the 2008 through 2017 general elections. Ruth Dyson of the Labour Party had previously held the Banks Peninsula electorate since the 1999 election that was largely replaced by Port Hills, and held Port Hills for its entire existence before retiring ahead of the 2020 election. The Port Hills electorate was mostly urban, and lost the more rural Banks Peninsula areas of the old electorate to the Selwyn electorate that was also formed for the 2008 election.
Selwyn is a current electorate in the New Zealand House of Representatives, composed of towns on the outskirts of Christchurch city. The electorate was first formed for the 1866 election and has been abolished three times during its history. It was last re-established for the 2008 election and has been held by Nicola Grigg for the National Party since the 2020 election.
Titirangi is a former New Zealand parliamentary electorate. It existed from 1987 to 2002, with a break from 1996 to 1999. It was represented by four members of parliament, with three of them from Labour and one from National.
The 49th New Zealand Parliament was elected at the 2008 election. It comprised 122 members, including an overhang of two seats caused by the Māori Party having won two more electorate seats than its share of the party vote would otherwise have given it. The Parliament served from December 2008 until the November 2011 election.
Denis John O'Rourke is a former New Zealand politician. He served fifteen years as a councillor on Christchurch City Council, and served six years as a Member of Parliament representing New Zealand First.
Tutehounuku "Nuk" Korako is a New Zealand politician and member of Canterbury Regional Council. He was previously a list Member of Parliament, representing the National Party, from 2014 to 2019.
Tracey Lee McLellan is a New Zealand politician. From 2020 to 2023, she was a Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for the Labour Party. In 2024, she re-entered parliament after the resignation of fellow Labour List MP Rino Tirikatene.
Reuben John Davidson is a New Zealand television producer and politician. He was on a Christchurch community board from 2019. In the 2023 general election, he was elected to represent the Christchurch East electorate in Parliament.
