Kelston (New Zealand electorate)

Kelston is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate that returns one member to the House of Representatives. It was first formed for the 2014 election and was won by Labour's Carmel Sepuloni, who has held the electorate since.

Kelston
Single-member general constituency for the New Zealand House of Representatives
Formation	2014
Region	Auckland
Character	Suburban
Term	3 years
Member for Kelston
Carmel Sepuloni[1] since 20 September 2014
Party	Labour
Previous MP	null
Party vote distribution

Population centres

Kelston is located in an area in Auckland south-west of Waitematā Harbour covering part of Te Atatū South, the suburbs of Glen Eden, Sunnyvale, Glendene, Kelston, New Lynn, and Avondale, part of Mt Albert and the suburb of Waterview, with the name coming from one of its component suburbs.^[2]

History

Kelston was proposed in the 2013/14 electorate boundary review and confirmed by the Electoral Commission on 17 April 2014.^[3] The increase in population in the Auckland region as recorded in the 2013 census meant an extra electorate was required to keep all electorates within five percent of their quota. To accommodate an extra electorate the Electoral Commission abolished Waitakere and established two new electorates, namely Kelston and Upper Harbour.^[3]

The Kelston electorate took over parts of the Te Atatū, New Lynn, Mount Albert and Waitakere electorates. The first three electorates are all safe Labour electorates while Waitakere was marginal; National's Paula Bennett won the electorate by just nine votes in 2011 from Labour's Carmel Sepuloni. Subsequently, Kelston was regarded as a safe Labour electorate. Labour selected Sepuloni as its candidate for the 2014 general election,^[4] and she won the election with a majority of over 5,000 votes to National's Chris Penk.^[5] In the 2025 Boundary Commission's boundary report for 2026, the Kelston electorate will be abolished and replaced with the Glendene electorate.^[6]

Members of Parliament

Unless otherwise stated, all MPs' terms began and ended at general elections.

Key   Labour

Election	Winner
2014 election		Carmel Sepuloni
2017 election
2020 election
2023 election

List MPs

Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Kelston electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs' terms began and ended at general elections.

Key   Green

Election
2023 election		Golriz Ghahraman[a]

Election results

2023 election

2023 general election: Kelston[7]
Notes:		Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	Labour	Y Carmel Sepuloni		14,413	43.71	-19.09	12,460	37.05	-24.80
	National	Ruby Schaumkel		10,017	30.38	+11.93	10,442	31.04	+13.90
	Green	Golriz Ghahraman		3,777	11.45	+4.76	4,709	14.00	+5.80
	ACT	Jacob Curran		1,774	5.38	+2.00	1,990	5.91	+1.59
	NZ First	Anne Degia-Pala		1,142	3.46	+1.83	1,580	4.69	+2.13
	Te Pāti Māori	Jacqui Harema		679	2.05	—	591	1.75	+1.24
	DemocracyNZ	Leao Tildsley		416	1.26	-0.42	97	0.28	–
	New Conservative	Alister Hood		219	0.66	-1.02	70	0.20	-1.15
	Opportunities						650	1.93	+0.79
	NewZeal						267	0.79	+0.49
	NZ Loyal						238	0.70	-
	Legalise Cannabis						125	0.37	±0.00
	Freedoms NZ						93	0.27	–
	Animal Justice						56	0.16	–
	Women's Rights						30	0.08	–
	Leighton Baker Party						12	0.03	–
	New Nation						12	0.03	–
Informal votes				533			208
Total valid votes				32,970			33,630
	Labour hold		Majority	4,396	13.33	-33.01

2020 election

2020 general election: Kelston[8]
Notes:		Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	Labour	Y Carmel Sepuloni		22,177	62.80	+8.63	22,081	61.85	+11.67
	National	Bala Beeram		6,517	18.45	−12.26	6,121	17.14	−15.68
	Green	Jessamine Fraser		2,365	6.69	+0.29	2929	8.20	+1.50
	ACT	Matthew Percival		1,195	3.38	—	1543	4.32	+3.97
	New Conservative	Leao Tildsley		594	1.68	+0.99	484	1.35	+1.06
	NZ First	Anne Degia-Pala		576	1.63	-3.10	915	2.56	-3.99
	Legalise Cannabis	Jeff Lye		425	1.20	+0.07	135	0.37	+0.04
	Advance NZ	Maureen Kumeroa		288	0.81	—	294	0.82	—
	ONE	Faye Lavaka Tangipa		177	0.50	—	109	0.30	—
	Trump New Zealand	Kevin Brett		57	0.16
	Social Credit	Jason Jobsis		33	0.50	—	14	0.03	+0.02
	Opportunities						408	1.14	-0.41
	Māori Party						185	0.51	+0.01
	TEA						61	0.17	—
	Vision NZ						20	0.05	—
	Outdoors						14	0.03	—
	Sustainable NZ						13	0.03	—
	Heartland						4	0.01	—
Informal votes				908			367
Total valid votes				35,312			35,697
	Labour hold		Majority	15,660	44.34	+20.88

2017 election

2017 general election: Kelston[9]
Notes:		Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	Labour	Y Carmel Sepuloni		16,789	54.17	+3.27	15,982	50.18	+8.05
	National	Bala Beeram		9,520	30.71	−2.09	10,456	32.83	−0.51
	Green	Nicola Smith		1,984	6.40	−0.52	2,133	6.70	−4.04
	NZ First	Anne Degia-Pala		1,467	4.73	+0.40	2,087	6.55	−1.90
	Legalise Cannabis	Jeff Lye		350	1.13	+0.11	106	0.33	−0.02
	Māori Party	Cinnamon Whitlock		288	0.93	—	159	0.50	+0.19
	Conservative	Warren Knott		213	0.69	−1.38	91	0.29	−2.67
	Opportunities						494	1.55	—
	ACT						112	0.35	−0.65
	People's Party						45	0.14	—
	Mana Party						24	0.08	—
	United Future						14	0.04	−0.12
	Outdoors						11	0.03	—
	Internet						9	0.03	—
	Ban 1080						7	0.02	−0.02
	Democrats						1	0.01	−0.02
Informal votes				385			120
Total valid votes				30,996			31,851
	Labour hold		Majority	7,269	23.46	+5.36

2014 election

2014 general election: Kelston[5]
Notes:		Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent. A Y or N denotes status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Party		Candidate		Votes	%	±%	Party votes	%	±%
	Labour	Carmel Sepuloni		15,091	50.90		12,934	42.13
	National	Chris Penk		9,724	32.80		9,924	32.32
	Green	Ruth Irwin		2,052	6.92		3,298	10.74
	NZ First	Anne Degia-Pala		1,283	4.33		2,595	8.45
	Conservative	Paul Sommer		613	2.07		910	2.96
	Legalise Cannabis	Jeff Lye		301	1.02		108	0.35
	ACT	Bruce Haycock		267	0.90		308	1.00
	Internet	Roshni Sami		234	0.79
	United Future	Jason Woolston		82	0.28		48	0.16
	Internet Mana						432	1.41
	Māori Party						94	0.31
	Civilian						15	0.05
	Ban 1080						13	0.04
	Democrats						8	0.03
	Focus						7	0.02
	Independent Coalition						7	0.02
Informal votes				415			179
Total valid votes				30,062			30,880
Turnout				30,810	72.71[10]
	Labour win new seat		Majority	5,367	18.10

Table footnotes

1. Ghahraman resigned from Parliament on 18 January 2024