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RICKY WILSON / Stuff
Chloe Swarbrick officially secured the Auckland Central seat in Parliament after the special votes were counted.
Green MP Chloe Swarbrick officially won the Auckland Central seat after doubling her margin in special voting.
Labor candidate Helen White declined to concede the race after preliminary results announced on election night showed that Swarbrick had beaten her by just 492 candidate votes.
However, official election results, released on Friday after about 500,000 special votes were counted, increased Swarbrick’s lead to a margin of 1068.
Swarbrick said her top priorities as a representative of the electorate would be to present a plan to end homelessness and protect the Hauraki Gulf.
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“When we started the campaign to win Auckland Central, our message was clear, Auckland people should choose who they think will best represent our city. I am very honored to have the privilege of representing our home and our communities, ”Swarbrick said Friday.
RNZ
Chlöe Swarbrick will soon know if she has remained in her seat in Auckland Central now that the special votes have been counted. His success was one of the surprises on election night, winning by just under 500 votes.
Swarbrick, a longtime activist for the legalization of cannabis, also acknowledged the end result of the cannabis referendum.
The official tally in the referendum was even closer than the preliminary results, which put the opposition at 53.1 percent.
In the end, 48.4 percent voted in favor of the bill, while 50.7 percent were against.
RYAN ANDERSON / Stuff
Green Party MP Chloe Swarbrick points to a grassroots campaign as the key part of her victory in Auckland Central’s electorate.
Swarbrick said she was proud to be involved in the “yes” campaign, which advocated what she described as an “evidence-based harm reduction approach …”.
“Despite the outcome, we are very happy to have started a conversation about the need for fit-for-purpose drug laws in New Zealand.
“As a country, we have come so far in understanding the need to reduce the harm of drugs by taking them out of the shadows, and I remain committed to working towards a drug harm reduction approach in the future,” he said. .
On election night, Swarbrick said higher voter turnout, particularly among young people, was encouraging, but attributed its success to a successful local campaign.
“We are excited and this shows you what a grassroots campaign can accomplish,” Swarbrick said.
“We do not owe it to anyone, except the strong and massive grassroots campaign, which had more than 100 registered volunteers.”
Swarbrick said she was sure she helped boost the party’s vote along the way and said the party’s “two-tick campaign” had been “phenomenal.”
“I feel immense gratitude for the privilege people have given me to represent them.
“We have put together a campaign and we have achieved things that nobody thought were possible, and this is what the base means to me. That’s why I’m in politics, ”he said.
Labor’s White also made it to Parliament, on the party’s list.
However, National’s candidate for the Auckland Central electorate, Emma Mellow, did not get a seat in the house.
