Christchurch Central

Wagner significantly increased her winning margin in the 2014 election after having declared the electorate "unwinnable" for National earlier in the year following a boundary review.

The 1941 New Zealand census had been postponed due to World War II, so the 1946 electoral redistribution had to take ten years of population growth and movements into account.

Since the 2008 election, the following suburbs, in alphabetical order, are at least partially located in the electorate: Avonside, Central City, Edgeware, Linwood, Mairehau, Merivale, North Linwood, Northcote, Papanui, Phillipstown, Redwood, Richmond, Shirley, St Albans, Sydenham, and Waltham.

[2] In the 2013/14 redistribution, the electorate lost Mairehau and Shirley to Christchurch East and gained more of Sydenham and Beckenham from Port Hills and more of Redwood from Waimakariri.

[4] Labour held the seat for the next 65 years, though a high turnout for the Alliance saw Tim Barnett's 1996 majority come in at under a thousand.

At the 1996 election, i.e. with the advent of MMP, Dalziel did not contest an electorate but stood as a list candidate only.

Due to the closeness of the results a judicial recount was held where Wagner's majority increased by 2 votes to 47.

Although she was expected to not contest the 2014 general election, she announced at the end of January 2014 that she would try to defend her seat.

[13] The Labour Party chose Duncan Webb as its candidate for the 2017 general election.

[14] Webb narrowly won the seat in 2017, and massively increased his majority at the 2020 election amid that year's Labour landslide.

It was then held by the National Party until the 2017 general election when it swung back to Labour.

Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent.