2016 Mount Roskill by-election
A by-election was held in the Mount Roskill electorate on 3 December 2016. The seat was vacated following the resignation of Phil Goff after he was elected Mayor of Auckland.
Background
At just under Mount Roskill has the third-smallest land area among New Zealand's electorates. Following the 2014 boundary changes, it lost New Windsor to the electorate, but gained areas around Three Kings and Sandringham and retained the communities of Mount Roskill, Lynfield, Wesley, and Hillsborough. About 39% of the usually resident population of Mount Roskill are from the Asian ethnic group – the second-highest percentage of any general electorate in 2013, and over three times the national average. Just less than half of the people in the electorate in 2013 were born in New Zealand – the fifth-lowest share in New Zealand. The proportions of those affiliated with Islam, and those affiliated with Hinduism, are the highest and third-highest in the country respectively. Over two-thirds of people in Mount Roskill stated they had never smoked, the third-highest share among general electorates.At the 2014 election, Phil Goff captured a majority of the 32,976 valid electorate votes cast for candidates in the Mount Roskill electorate. The National Party captured a plurality of the party votes in Mount Roskill, up 2.6 percentage points on its party vote share in 2011. The Labour Party received 35.6% of the party votes, the Green Party received 9.7%, and New Zealand First received 5.3%. No other party gained more than 5% of the party votes. Turnout in 2014 was 75.0%.