1981 Election
At the 1981 election supporters rallied around Mel Courtney's Independent campaign and, although defeated, it was by the narrow margin of 698 votes. Courtney took a very creditable 37.0 per cent of the total vote, only 3.4 percentage points behind the Labour candidate and nearly three times as many votes as the National candidate's share of the vote. This was the best result by an independent candidate in New Zealand Elections in nearly forty years.
| New Zealand general election, 1981 - Nelson result | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labour | Philip Woollaston | 8,198 | 40.41 | ||
| Independent | Mel Courtney | 7,500 | 36.97 | ||
| National | 2,749 | 13.55 | |||
| Social Credit | 1,545 | 7.61 | |||
| Values | 297 | 1.46 | |||
| Turnout | 20,289 | ||||
| Majority | 698 | 3.44 | |||
Read more about this topic: Mel Courtney
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