New Zealand will still have a government until National is ready to form a new one.

A constitutional quirk dictates that at midnight tomorrow the current Labour government’s ministers will lose their warrants, effectively ending the current administration.

But that would mean no government keeping things ticking over until National takes over. To fix this, both Chris Hipkins and his successor Christopher Luxon have agreed for the governor-general to extend the current caretaker government arrangements.

“Under section six of the Constitution Act current ministers must leave office at 11.59pm tomorrow, Saturday 11 November. Given the writ has not yet been returned due to recounts and negotiations to form a new government are progressing the simplest solution is to roll over the current caretaker arrangements for a little bit longer,” Hipkins said in a statement.

“Following consultation with Christopher Luxon, I have written to the governor-general to advise her to reappoint the current ministry to operate in caretaker mode until the new government is appointed.”

There will not be a formal ceremony to mark the occasion, which will take place at about 1pm.

While most ministers will retain their roles, there will be one key change. As Nanaia Mahuta lost her seat and is leaving parliament, her roles – including the crucial foreign affairs posting – must be replaced. Grant Robertson will be appointed minister of foreign affairs and minister for disarmament and arms control, while Willie Jackson will take over the associate Māori development role.

Coalition talks are ongoing and there remains no timeframe for them to be wrapped up.

Nelson’s Labour MP Rachel Boyack has had her election win confirmed following an official recount ordered by National. But, her majority has been cut even further – she’s retained the seat by just 26 votes.

“It is the privilege of my life to be the MP for Nelson and I’m looking forward to continuing my work as a strong advocate for the Nelson region,” said Boyack in a statement.

“I acknowledge Blair Cameron from the National Party who ran a strong campaign in Nelson. I’m looking forward to getting back to parliament and working alongside my colleagues under Chris Hipkins’ leadership to hold the new government to account.”

On election night almost a month ago, Boyack had lost to Cameron by 54 votes. Once the special votes had been counted, Boyack was in front by 29. According to Boyack, the recount had given both candidates a few extra votes.

Boyack said Labour would be a “formidable opposition” and she intended to play her part as a strong local MP for Nelson, singling out “public transport, the Nelson Hospital upgrade, housing and significant economic development projects”.

Other recounts still to be completed are in Mount Albert and Tāmaki Makaurau, where Labour’s Peeni Henare lost by just four votes.

People are being urged to keep up to date with vaccinations and stay home if they’re sick as Covid-19 cases increase.

Professor Michael Baker told RNZ that New Zealand’s Covid hospitalisation rate was the highest it had been for six months, while wastewater detection of cases suggested we may now be in a “fifth wave” of infections.

“Part of it is the change, the removal of the requirement for self-isolation and also the end of the leave support scheme back in mid August. We saw case numbers, self-reported numbers drop off,” he said.

“But the thing to look at now, of course, is the wastewater testing and this doesn’t depend on human behaviour, and this is showing a really big uptick in detections of the virus across the country at the moment.”

Baker said that people may be opting to go to work even if they were sick, as mandatory isolation requirements were dropped earlier in the year. However, he reiterated that booster doses of the vaccine were “freely available” for everyone over the age of 30.

“Unfortunately, only about 50 percent of adults have actually had their fourth dose and so they’re really missing out on this protection – so that would be a really important thing for people to check up on.”

Labour MP and outgoing minister Ginny Andersen says she can’t “recall” shouting at a teenage volunteer, as was reported yesterday in a leaked complaint to media.

The party’s investigating reports that Andersen yelled at a pair of young Labour volunteers on election night, suggesting their lack of campaigning was why the Hutt South seat had been won by National’s Chris Bishop.

Speaking to Newshub this morning, Andersen denied she was a bully and said the only person to blame for her election loss was herself. “I said in general, ‘We could’ve door-knocked more’, as the reason we were behind,” said Andersen, who apologised if her words were “taken” in an aggressive way.

“I’ve known this volunteer for a number of years, I know her family really well. I’d like the opportunity to sit down and talk through what happened and offer my apology. I do believe this has been a misunderstanding,” she said.

“If my words have caused any hurt, if my actions have caused offence, I sincerely apologise for that, and I’d like the opportunity through this process to put that right… I’m really sorry that this volunteer has construed my words in a way that was directed towards them, that was never my intention.”

Act’s David Seymour popped in to see New Zealand First’s Winston Peters again today, the second time the pair have met face-to-face since election night.

According to reports, the meeting took just 10 minutes though Seymour said this was because they had “done exactly what we hoped to do”. He wouldn’t elaborate on what that meant, but said the meeting was productive.

“Sometimes you can get a lot of very useful things done in a short space of time and that was one of them,” he told reporters.

Before walking into the short catch-up, Seymour said he was going to “see a man about a horse”.

Yesterday’s meeting between the two leaders was described by Seymour as “congenial and hopeful and promising” and said the two could “work well together” – a strong change of language when compared with the election campaign.

American late night show host John Oliver has stepped up his campaign for the pūteketeke in this year’s bird of the century contest.

He appeared on the panel of his fellow host Jimmy Fallon’s show, dressed in full pūteketeke garb. As an aside, can we get that sent over to New Zealand? At the very least, it should feature on the next season of The Masked Singer.

Meanwhile, vote counting in the all-important bird election has been slowed by the influx of international votes prompted by Oliver’s campaign. The results will now be released on Wednesday morning, two days later than anticipated. Forest and Bird’s chief executive Nicola Toki told RNZ that overall votes were into the six figures, dwarfing the total number received in last year’s competition.

But while it may seem like a foregone conclusion, there are other competitors in the race. One, the kākāriki karaka, has found a strong defender in conservation group RealNZ. They’ve compared Oliver’s meddling in bird of the year to Russian interference in the US election (no, really, and believe me Oliver’s going to have a field day with this) and chucked up their own billboards around New Zealand.

Kiwisaver provider Simplicity has announced it’s divesting all holdings in three Israeli banks in line with its policy surrounding “responsible investment” and in response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

They are Bank Hapoalim BM, Bank Leumi Le Israel BM and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank Ltd.

In a post on Instagram, the provider wrote: “These changes will be reflected in our global share portfolio and subsequently all funds that carried the holdings.

“We’re grateful for all the feedback from our members which help us be a better ethical investor and purpose-driven company.”

It’s not often we touch on crime issues in the live updates, but I felt given the public interest in this case, and the fact an arrest has been made overnight, warranted including this.

Police have confirmed a man has been arrested in connection to an alleged double homicide in the Auckland suburb of Ellerslie.

On Monday, police found Fuk-Fu Kwok unresponsive at his property while his wife, Mei Han Chong, was missing. At first, it was unknown whether Chong was involved in the alleged murder or a victim of foul play.

Overnight, police confirmed they had located her body in the suburb of Greenhithe and subsequently found a 42-year-old man they believed to be responsible.

According to the Herald, the man, who has name suppression, is not believed to be a relative.

“I have to thank our outstanding team who has worked tirelessly and through the night to bring a resolution to this family,” detective inspector Scott Beard said.

“Our investigation team identified activity near the Celtic Crescent address [in Ellerslie] on the night of the alleged homicide, which has allowed us to scour through hours’ worth of CCTV to locate a vehicle of interest.”

New fintech startup Aera says first-home buyers would need to save for an infinite number of years to secure a house deposit. Founder Derek Handley joins Bernard Hickey to discuss Aera’s plan to help first-home buyers to get onto the property ladder, with a new take on the bank of mum and dad.

It’s been a tough week for Labour’s Ginny Andersen. The former Hutt South MP was forced to apologise yesterday after the mother of a 17-year-old volunteer accused her of bullying behaviour. Now The Post’s Andrea Vance (paywalled) reports that Andersen took “an expensive three-day jaunt to Paris, funded by the taxpayer” in June.

The trip to an OECD conference cost a total of $51,000 and included business-class airfares for Andersen and a staffer that cost more than $33,000, Vance reports. A spokesperson for Andersen says the costs were approved by Cabinet and “are comparable to other ministerial travel at that time”.

Want to read The Bulletin in full? Click here to subscribe and join over 39,000 New Zealanders who start each weekday with the biggest stories in politics, business, media and culture. 

It’s not looking likely we’ll have a new National-led government by the weekend, which means we’re looking at a slightly unusual constitutional situation.

The ministerial warrants for the current Labour government will end tomorrow, meaning that New Zealand would be without a government. However, as Stuff explains this morning, the governor-general can step in and extend the ministerial warrants of the outgoing administration, ensuring PM Chris Hipkins and his team can stay on in their current roles.

The need for this is simply because the warrants expire tomorrow, a legislatively required deadline that kicks in 28 days after a general election. With the three-week wait for special votes, there was just over a week left for a new government to be formed before the automatic expiry.

However, while the governor-general will be able to extend the run of the new government if needed, there’s an exception. Nanaia Mahuta, the foreign minister, opted not to run on Labour’s list and after losing her electorate seat has been turfed out of parliament. That means she won’t be staying in the role come Saturday and the government’s been forced to think of a back-up plan.

Enter Grant Robertson, who will be made acting foreign minister and take on Mahuta’s full responsibilities in the meantime.

There’s still no fixed timeframe for when the next government will be formed, though yesterday saw all three parties in Wellington – and the first face-to-face meeting of David Seymour and Winston Peters.

Due to the special vote count, Peters told reporters that substantive talks had really only been going for “four days” – but “speed is of the essence… we’re not wasting time here”.