New Rainbow Labour MP Grant Robertson
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Labour’s longest-serving gay MP Chris Carter has romped home in Te Atatu, with 5,000 more votes than National’s Tau Henare with 93% of the vote counted.
New gay candidate Grant Robertson has comfortably won the Wellington Central seat, beating National’s Stephen Franks by 1,500 votes on final count.
National's only openly gay candidate Christopher Finlayson has lost the Rongotai electorate by 9,300 to Labour's Annette King who won convincingly with over 17,000 votes. Finlayson will definitely be back in Parliament however, at number 14 on National's list.
After a tight race in Ohariu, United Future leader Peter Dunne has taken the seat, with Labour’s Charles Chauvel getting just 1,000 fewer votes on the final count. At 27th place on Labour's list Chauvel will still be back in Parliament.
National's anti-gay Nick Smith has beaten
Louisa Wall's 4,500 votes in the Maori seat of Tamaki Makaurau, where the vote is all but complete, pale against Pita Sharples' 10,000 votes. Lesbian sportperson Wall, a late-comer to Parliament in the last term, is a significant glbt casualty of election night. At number 43 on the list she is extremely unlikely to return to Parliament.
In a surprise final result, in Auckland Cental, the nation's gayest electorate, National's Nikki Kaye has won over the electorate's long-serving MP Judith Tizard, by a slim 1,181 margin. At number 38 on Labour's list, Tizard will not return to the house.
In summary, the new openly glbt MPs for the coming Parliamentary term are
Chris Carter (Labour)
Charles Chauvel (Labour)
Christopher Finlayson (National)
Kevin Hague (Green)
Grant Robertson (Labour)
Maryan Street (Labour)
The number of openly glbt MPs therefore remains six, the same as it was for the last term.
Helen Clark has announced she is stepping down from leadership of the Labour party, ending an era during which the nation's most powerful politician was clearly and publicly attuned to the needs of glbt New Zealanders.
