National’s Pakuranga MP is running his party’s election campaign as well as defending his own seat.
“I’m focused on making sure that we win in November and making sure that we deliver a National-led government,” Simeon Brown said after Prime Minister Christopher Luxon handed him the campaign chair role on 2 April.
Brown announced his reselection as National’s candidate for Pakuranga on 29 November last year.
“Serving as a local MP is a great privilege and it is humbling to have received the support of the people of Pakuranga at the past three elections,” he wrote at the time.
He said the Government had delivered the Reeves Road Flyover and reversed the speed limit on Pakuranga Road.
Luxon and Takanini MP Rima Nakhle both appeared in the roll call of National candidates at the party’s annual conference in Wellington on 21 June.
All three electorates covering this paper’s circulation area are therefore being defended by a sitting National MP.
Brown used the same conference speech to tell members that a party vote for National’s coalition partners did not help National.
“When it comes to coalitions, sharing isn’t caring, sharing is diluting your voice, your values, and your policies,” he said.
The three seats are not equally safe.
Brown has held Pakuranga since 2017 and won it in 2023 by 18,710 votes.
Luxon has held Botany since 2020 and won it by 16,323.
Nakhle took Takanini in 2023 by 8,775 votes, in a seat drawn to be marginal.
The boundaries have moved since.
The Representation Commission’s 2025 report shifts Cockle Bay and Shelly Park out of Botany and into Pakuranga, and moves Mission Heights out of Takanini and into Botany.
The general election is on Saturday 7 November.
