What just happened? What will happen?

No one has won. No one has conceded. The governing coalition holds 67 of 131 seats on the preliminary count, but nearly 400,000 special votes won't be counted until 27 November, and the arithmetic could still flip, Henry Oliver writes in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

Writing for The Spinoff, Otago law professor Andrew Geddis reaches for Donald Rumsfeld to explain the situation: known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. “Were I a betting man I’d probably back either a narrow existing government coalition bloc majority based on a disproportionate overhang, or a 66-66 split that can only be resolved by The Opportunity Party making some deal,” he writes. “But it’s by no means a certain enough outcome for me to want to put any of my hard earned money on it.”

The overhang is doing the work. National's party vote entitles it to 35 MPs, but it leads in 42 electorates – seven extra seats. Te Pāti Māori has won five electorates on a party vote worth one, adding four more. As RNZ’s Craig McCulloch puts it, “on a strictly proportional basis, Parliament would be deadlocked at 60 seats apiece.”

Five ways it could shift

McCulloch sets out the scenarios. National could lose Wairarapa (139-vote margin) or Hamilton East (456) to Labour – each loss shrinks Parliament and the coalition’s total, though one loss still leaves 66 in a 130-seat House. It could gain Mt Roskill (262) or Hutt South (889), growing its overhang. The Greens winning Te Tai Tokerau (436) would actually help Luxon by removing a Te Pāti Māori overhang seat. National’s party vote could fall without costing it a single MP, since its overhang absorbs the loss. And most dangerously for the right bloc, Act or NZ First could lose a list seat – neither has an overhang to protect it, and two lost seats would put Opportunity in the kingmaker position.

RNZ's worked example: National loses Wairarapa, NZ First loses a list seat, National’s overhang grows, Opportunity picks up a list MP – and suddenly the coalition has 65 in a 131-seat House, with the other four parties holding 66. So, a nailbiter.

Meanwhile, a caretaker runs the country

On The Conversation, Grant Duncan reassures us that Luxon and his ministers remain in office under the caretaker convention. “It’s not correct to say ‘there’s no government’.” Significant decisions are deferred or handled with a light touch, and anything that can’t wait should be taken in consultation with other parties. As the Cabinet Manual puts it, “There are no hard and fast rules.”

And in case you’re worried we’re going to have to go through all of this again, Duncan doesn’t see a scenario where there’d be a need for a fresh election: “A majority can always be found, but that always requires some compromises.”

‘Proud’ Luxon no longer ruling Opportunity out

Amelia Wade reports for The Post that Luxon says he is “proud” of the result and has the authority to stay on, despite losing his finance minister, justice minister, speaker and infrastructure minister because National won no list seats. “It’s a huge loss for our team. These are my friends,” he said. Crucially, he would not repeat his campaign position on Opportunity. “I do expect, irrespective of her numbers, to actually build a relationship with her and the Opportunity Party.”

This turnaround isn’t new. Richard Harman writes in The Post that Mark Mitchell “seemed to be floating the possibility of talks” with Opportunity on election night: “We’re in an MMP environment and we have to work and operate within that,” Mitchell said. Harman notes National’s list of alternative leaders “has suddenly got very short,” with Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop out, leaving Mitchell and Erica Stanford. There is also, apparently, “widespread unhappiness within the party about the negative nature of the campaign,” with fingers pointed at deputy leader Willis, campaign manager Jo de Joux, campaign chair Simeon Brown, social media consultants Topham Guerin and polling analyst Isaac Levido.

What now for Labour?

Andrea Vance writes in The Post that Hipkins’ closing line at the Upper Hutt Cossie Club (“When the final result is known, I'll have quite a bit more to say”) “sounded like a man preparing to say goodbye.” Running close second, she writes, still means losing, and having already lost once before, “he will have to go.”

She reports “widespread acceptance inside the party that a personnel change at the top is inevitable,” alongside a deeper reckoning. Labour has lived in a “third-way straitjacket” since 1993 – “caution and median-voter triangulation,” fighting “on the right’s economic turf.” The emerging view is that this election exposed the strategy as exhausted, and that the path back may require “an unapologetic move to the left.”

A transition, she suggests, would likely be led by Kieran McAnulty’s “grounded provincial appeal” and Barbara Edmonds’ “economic literacy" – not Michael Wood, who “blew an electorate Labour should have easily retaken.” Hipkins must, of course, hold the fort until the specials are in and the result finally known. Then, if the votes (and, if needed, the coalition negotiations) don’t go his way, “he can head off to get remarried, and leave Labour to start its ideological rebirth.”