Ten things to read about the election

It’s a long wait until the special votes will decide the shape of the next government. In the meantime, here’s what to read about yesterday’s election, from today’s post-election special from The Bulletin.

Chris and Chris, still bound to each other

“We went into election day thinking, this is going to be really close,” writes Toby Manhire on The Spinoff this morning. “The morning after? This is going to be really close.”

Manhire notes the path to power is “unquestionably clearer for the right” – with more than 95% of the ordinary vote counted, the three incumbent parties had “the backing of almost exactly 50% of the total,” and on the night the MMP calculator had the bloc commanding 67 seats in an expanded parliament of 131. While the two biggest parties ended the night neck-and-neck (with Labour on 29.4% and National on 29.2%), electorate wins have given National (as of this morning) six more seats than Labour.  Manhire attributes part of that to the campaign led by Harry Mowbray and Don Brash to amplify an overhang, noting Te Pāti Māori supporters “certainly appear to have taken heed of the exhortation to split their votes.”

He argues a serious review of the overhang provision is essential, invoking 1978 and 1981 – when National won more seats than Labour despite fewer votes, a central argument for abandoning first-past-the-post. “In 2026, under the proportional system of MMP, that is about to happen again.”

Te Pāti Māori holds five seats, while Greens become a serious presence in Māori electorates

Te Pāti Māori is on track to win five of seven Māori electorates, The Spinoff’s Liam Rātana reports, one fewer than 2023, but a striking result for a party that spent the term managing expulsions and legal challenges. Both expelled MPs, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Tākuta Ferris, look set to lose. The tightest contest is Te Tai Tokerau, where Aperahama Edwards leads the Greens’ Hūhana Lyndon by 497 votes with specials still to be counted.

Lyndon’s strong result is just the tip of the iceberg for the Greens “whose share of the party vote has climbed to between 32% and 37% in every Māori electorate” – partly a result of Te Pāti Māori’s electorate-only overhang campaign, but also an election-on-election growth in support for the party across Māori voters.

A country divided

“Good morning New Zealand,” Mike White’s writes for the Sunday Star-Times, “welcome to a country divided and a world of questions.” White captures last night’s whiplash: National initially looked set to hold power, then Labour clawed back, and by this morning, neither cracked 30%. White writes that the result raises the prospect of a four-party government for the first time since MMP began in 1996. 

“This year, 3,790,946 people were enrolled – 93.6% of eligible voters – down from 94.7% in 2023,” White reports. “Among 18-24 year olds, enrolment was 74.2%. Among Māori, it was 85.9%. From those, some voted with strategy, some with gut instinct, some with spontaneity in the ballot box, others with loyalty that went back generations. But as one voter described it, no matter who won, he doubted a packet of Weet-Bix would be any cheaper.”

An election night of broken records

RNZ’s Russell Palmer wraps up a night of firsts and broken records: Opportunity is the first party to enter Parliament from outside with no incumbent MPs and no electorate win, and Qiulae Wong the first Asian leader of a parliamentary party. The Greens and Act both recorded their best-ever results. National became the first major party to secure an overhang – and the first to win no list seats. With 11 overhang seats, Parliament is heading for 131 MPs, far beyond the previous record of 123. And for the first time, the two major parties have won less than 60% of the vote combined.

The senior ministers who lost their jobs

The Herald’s Tom Raynel writes that Nicola Willis, number two on National’s list (not to mention finance minister and deputy leader), conceded she has “likely lost her job”. She ran list-only, which required National to hold its 2023 party vote; it did not. Chris Bishop, number three, described losing Hutt South as “soul-destroying.” Paul Goldsmith, number six (and minister for nearly everything), also failed to win Epsom against David Seymour. Speaker of the house (and former National deputy leader) Gerry Brownlee departs after 30 years as the country's longest continuously serving MP after running as a list-only candidate.

Seymour wants Willis’ job

With Willis out of Parliament, the coalition’s finance minister role is open (should it return to power), and Act leader David Seymour told The Post’s Amelia Wade he wants it. “I would love to do the job, and I know I'm capable of doing the job. But my first priority is get the policies right, and then think about the positions.”

With a weakened National and a strengthened Act, Seymour is set for a stronger hand in negotiations. His key policies are taking tax off KiwiSaver, boosting pharmacies, three-strikes penalties for burglaries, and equal rights in the Constitution Act. A key push will be reducing the number of ministers – Act campaigned on a limit of 18. 

Seymour held Epsom with a healthy margin over Goldsmith, who needed the seat to stay in Parliament. “I’ve always argued that Epsom has a strategy, but Epsom is not only a strategy. You do actually have to do the work, and, you know, I’ve got a lot of time for Paul. He's a nice guy, but sheesh, the number of times people have come to us and said, ‘Yeah, we approached Paul and we got nowhere, so now we’ve come to you.’ Over the last 12 years, probably hundreds of occasions. So that’s the truth.”

He had not been in touch with Goldsmith and had received no concession call – suggesting it should come from the man who backed Goldsmith at the end of the campaign. “I assume that would come from John Key.”

Five fresh National MPs – but at what cost?

RNZ’s Jo Moir notes the paradox: National won the most seats, collecting 42 electorates, but that success cost the party its most experienced MPs. Five first-timers – Mahesh Muralidhar, Blair Cameron, Matthew Paul, Lloyd Budd and Jess Rowe – are headed to parliament, but their celebrations must be muted, given the losses above them.

Treat us like adults

Matthew Hooton’s editorial for the Sunday Star-Times is typically scathing about both major parties. “What we used to call the two main parties can now only be described as mid-sized,” he writes. He accuses them of becoming “mere vehicles for careerists, fixated when in opposition almost entirely on politics and dragging down the other side rather than on preparing serious policy agendas for Government.” 

National’s campaign, he argues, was “not just as shallow as an empty birdbath but was surely the most cynical and dishonest any long-term political watcher can recall,” built on the fiction that Labour would implement nine new taxes at its partners’ behest. Labour, too, “insulted voters by offering no coherent programme.” The clincher: just 7% of voters strongly agreed the parties had treated them like adults, and another 22% somewhat agreed. “In a proper democracy, it should be 100%.”

‘Shit, we did it!’

The Spinoff’s Joel MacManus was at the World Cup Lounge at Eden Park last night to witness Opportunity’s history-making evening firsthand. In 30 years of MMP, no new party has entered Parliament except where sitting MPs left existing ones. Founded by Gareth Morgan in 2016, Opportunity had managed 2.4%, 1.5% and 2.2% – “after 10 years and millions of dollars spent, the total electoral success of the party amounted to one seat on the Featherston Community Board.”

At 7pm TVNZ flashed 5.4%, then 5.97% – seven MPs. Deputy leader Daniel Eb had told the room to form a guard of honour for Qiulae Wong, which “quickly fell apart” as camera operators rushed forward. “Shit, we did it!” she screamed, shaking her fists. “I'm just trying really hard not to swear, to be honest.”

What comes next

RNZ’s Lauren Crimp suggests that Wong will spend today rallying her caucus and booking flights to Wellington as a first-time MP. As of 11pm last night, Wong had not heard from either Luxon or Hipkins but had repeated her party’s promise to talk first with the party holding the most seats (currently National) not the one with the highest party vote (currently Labour), but “just because we speak to the largest party first doesn’t guarantee anything.” Coalition, confidence and supply, or the crossbenches are all on the table. 

While National’s ruling out of Opportunity certainly softened over last night, first by Mark Mitchell and then by Erica Stanford, new Act MP Paul Henry has said that if Luxon does not call Wong, Seymour will urge him to.

But we’ll have to wait and see to what extent National needs Opportunity. Or whether there’s still the need for a call from Labour. As Toby Manhire reported this morning, around 20% of votes cast in this election were special, and will not be reported until 27 November. They traditionally favour the left: in 2023 they gave Te Pāti Māori two extra electorates and the Greens a seat, while National lost two. “It would need to be an almighty lift to push the right bloc out of pole position,” he writes – but the electorates where margins are close could shift too. As Peters cautioned before slipping out the back door of the Duke of Marlborough: “It’d be very wise if they held their counsel and found out what the results actually are.”