Tukituki is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate in Hawke's Bay. It returns one member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. It was established for the 1996 general election and is named after the Tukituki River. Neighbouring electorates are Napier to the north, Wairarapa to the south, and Rangitīkei over the ranges to the west.
The current member of Parliament is Catherine Wedd of the National Party, who won the seat from first-term Labour MP Anna Lorck at the 2023 general election.
Population centres
Tukituki was created ahead of the change to mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting at the 1996 election; it was a merger of the old Hastings seat with Central Hawke's Bay District. Tukituki centres on the southern Hawke's Bay region, with the bulk of the electorate's population coming from the city of Hastings, with the rural towns of Havelock North, Flaxmere, Clive and Ōtāne, and the coastal communities of Haumoana, Te Awanga, Ocean Beach and Waimārama drafted in to bring the electorate up to the required population. In 2008, a general northwards tug on boundaries in the Taranaki, Manawatū-Whanganui and Hawke's Bay regions saw Waipukurau and Waipawa moved into the Wairarapa electorate, in exchange for which Tukituki gained the suburbs and towns around Cape Kidnappers from the Napier electorate. No boundary adjustments were undertaken in the subsequent 2013/14 and 2020 redistributions. In the 2025 boundary review, the electorate lost the rural communities north of the Ngaruroro River to Napier.
History Labour's Rick Barker,New Zealand Parliament – Rick Barker MP who had represented Hastings since 1993, was elected as MP, and re-elected twice. National's Craig Foss first contested the electorate in the , but Barker comfortably held it. Ranked 47th on National's party list, Foss did not enter Parliament.
With a large provincial swing to the National Party in the , Foss took the seat. This was the third time in over thirty years that a Hastings electorate had elected a National MP – the other two times being National's landslide victories in 1975 and 1990. Foss was returned to Parliament with a greatly increased majority in the 2008 election. His majority increased to nearly 10,000 votes in the . In the , his majority dropped to 6,490 votes. Foss quit politics at the 2017 general election and Lawrence Yule was elected, retaining it for the National Party.
Anna Lorck narrowly took the seat off of Yule in the 2020 election, returning it to Labour after 15 years with National.
The 2023 election saw Catherine Wedd re-capture the electorate back from Labour for National. Hawke's Bay Today described it as part of a "blue wave" across Hawke's Bay; Wedd overturned a 1,590 Labour majority, with a margin of 10,118 votes.
Members of Parliament Key
Election Winner Rick Barker Craig Foss Lawrence Yule Anna Lorck Catherine Wedd
List MPs Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Tukituki electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections.
Election Winner Rick Barker
Election results 2026 election The next election will be held on 7 November 2026. Candidates for Tukituki are listed at Candidates in the 2026 New Zealand general election by electorate § Tukituki. Official results will be available after 27 November 2026.
2023 election
2020 election
2017 election
2014 election
2011 election
Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 44,708
2008 election
2005 election
1999 election Refer to Candidates in the New Zealand general election 1999 by electorate#Tukituki for a list of candidates.
Notes
References
External links 2020 electorate profile (now outdated), New Zealand Parliament