Miramar (electorate)

The 1941 New Zealand census had been postponed due to World War II, so the 1946 electoral redistribution had to take ten years of population growth and movements into account. The North Island gained a further two electorates from the South Island due to faster population growth. The abolition of the country quota through the Electoral Amendment Act, 1945 reduced the number and increased the size of rural electorates. None of the existing electorates remained unchanged, 27 electorates were abolished, eight former electorates were re-established, and 19 electorates were created for the first time, including Miramar.^[1] The boundary of the Miramar electorate in 1946 took in the Miramar Peninsula, Rongotai and most of Lyall Bay and Kilbirnie, as follows:

All that area bounded by a line commencing at a point on the boundary of the City of Wellington at a point on the shore of Evans Bay in line with the middle-line of Onepu Road; thence to and along the production of that middle-line to the middle of Seatoun Road [now Rongotai Road]; thence along the middle of Seatoun Road and Crawford Road to a point in line with the eastern boundary of the Town Belt Reserve; thence in a southerly direction to and along the eastern boundary of the said Town Belt Reserve to a point in line with the middle of Carlton Street; thence to and along the middle of Carlton Street and Sutherland Road to a point in line with the middle-line of Lot 38, Block IV, as shown on the plan numbered 1889, deposited in the office of the District Land Registrar at Wellington; thence to and along the middle-line of that lot to and along the middle of Queen's Drive and its production to the shore of Lyall Bay; thence along the shores of Cook Strait, Port Nicholson, and Evans Bay, including all wharves and extensions seaward, to a point in line with the middle-line of Onepu Road, the point of commencement.^[2]

This boundary slowly shifted towards the city of Wellington in subsequent electoral redistributions.^[3] The electorate boundaries were unaffected by the electoral redistributions in 1972 and 1987.^[4] The electorate was abolished in 1996, when it was replaced by the Rongotai electorate.

The electorate was marginal, and changed several times between the parties. The first representative in 1946 was Bob Semple of the Labour Party.^[5] Semple did not stand for re-election in 1954 and died at New Plymouth in January 1955.^[6]

Semple was succeeded by Labour's Bill Fox, who served from 1954 until his defeat in the 1966 election by National's Bill Young.^[7]