Christchurch East is a New Zealand Parliamentary electorate. It is currently held by Lianne Dalziel of the Labour Party.

The electorate is based on the Eastern part of the City of Christchurch.

The electorate was first created, as Christchurch City East, for the 1871 election.Edward Jerningham Wakefield was elected and represented the electorate until the end of the electoral term in 1875, when Christchurch City East was abolished again, replaced by the three-member electorate City of Christchurch.

Christchurch East was re-created again for the 1905 election. The first representative, Thomas Davey, held the electorate for three parliamentary terms until 1914, when he retired. Davey was an Independent sympathetic to the Liberal Party.

Davey was succeeded by Henry Thacker of the Liberal Party. Thacker served for two terms and was elected Mayor of Christchurch in 1919.

Thacker was defeated in the 1922 election by Tim Armstrong of the Labour Party. Since his 1922 win, the electorate (for as long as it existed) has been held by Labour. Armstrong was re-elected in the five subsequent general elections and died in office on 8 November 1942.

Christchurch ( /ˈkraɪstʃɜrtʃ/, KRYS-church; Māori: Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's third-largest urban area. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of Christchurch.

The city was named by the Canterbury Association, which settled the surrounding province of Canterbury. The name of Christchurch was agreed on at the first meeting of the association on 27 March 1848. It was suggested by John Robert Godley, who had attended Christ Church, Oxford. Some early writers called the town Christ Church, but it was recorded as Christchurch in the minutes of the management committee of the association. Christchurch became a city by Royal Charter on 31 July 1856, making it officially the oldest established city in New Zealand.

The river that flows through the centre of the city (its banks now largely forming an urban park) was named Avon at the request of the pioneering Deans brothers to commemorate the Scottish Avon, which rises in the Ayrshire hills near what was their grandfathers' farm and flows into the Clyde.

Chris Tremain (born 1966) is a Member of the New Zealand House of Representatives for the National Party.

Born in Napier in 1966, Tremain attended Taradale Primary School, Taradale Intermediate, Napier Boys' High School and Massey University. He obtained a Bachelor of Business Studies in accounting and a Diploma of Business Studies in marketing. He has owned and operated a number of businesses in the Hawke's Bay Region, including Tremain Real Estate, Tremain Travel and Colliers International.

Tremain's father was All Black flanker and Hawke's Bay Rugby Union captain Kel Tremain.

Tremain, who is married to Angela and has three children (Sam, Will, and Lily), has been the driver of a number of community events including the annual Tremain Corporate Triathlon, which has become a large event on the Hawke’s Bay Sporting calendar. Tremain has been a key member of the team that has set up the Families in Homes Trust, which helps low income New Zealand families by providing the deposit for their first home.^{[citation needed]}

John Phillip Key (born 9 August 1961) is the 38th Prime Minister of New Zealand, in office since 2008. He has led the New Zealand National Party since 2006.

Born in Auckland before moving to Christchurch when he was a child, Key attended the University of Canterbury and graduated in 1981 with a bachelor of commerce, also later undertaking management studies at Harvard University in Boston. He began a career in the foreign exchange market in New Zealand before moving overseas to work for Merrill Lynch, in which he became head of global foreign exchange in 1995, a position he would hold for six years. In 1999 he was appointed a member of the Foreign Exchange Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York until leaving in 2001.

Key entered the New Zealand Parliament representing the Auckland electorate of Helensville as one of the few new National members of parliament in the election of 2002 following National's significant defeat of that year. He has held the seat since then. In 2004, he was appointed Finance Spokesman for National and eventually succeeded Don Brash as the National Party leader in 2006. After two years as Leader of the Opposition, Key led his party to victory in both the November 2008 and the November 2011 general elections.