The National Party will lead the next government after winning 39% of the vote in a blue wave that swept the country and left Labour decimated.
When all regular votes had been counted early Sunday morning, National had won 45 of the 75 electorates and was set to bring another five list candidates into Parliament. Special votes are yet to come.
Party leader Christopher Luxon said he’d called Act’s David Seymour to congratulate him on winning Epsom and a total of 11 seats. He did not seem to have called Winston Peters.
“There are many votes still to be counted, but on current numbers it looks like National and Act will be in a position to form a government,” he said in an 11pm victory speech.
Seymour called the result a win but it was a smaller one than some expected. The party only picked up one new MP (for a total of 11) and flipped the Tāmaki electorate..
Later in his speech, Luxon offered his congratulations to Peters, for New Zealand First’s success, and thanked him for his offer to “help where needed”.
An hour later it was looking like it might be needed, as National and Act had just 61 seats between them with 98% of the vote counted by the end of night.
However, Peters seemed content with eight seats in opposition during his own victory speech.
“In great democracies, the people who are elected must be held to account. Our purpose is to keep them honest and raise the roof when others won’t raise a finger,” he said.
“That’s what New Zealand is going to get out of this election as far as New Zealand First is concerned”.
Labour’s receding tide
Every party spun some sort of victory speech, except for Labour. There was no silver lining in storm clouds washing the party out of even some of its safest electorates.
For example, Labour has won the Mount Albert electorate in every election since its creation in 1946. It has given the party three leaders and two Prime Ministers.
But at midnight on election night, Labour was hanging onto it with a margin of just 103 votes.
Next door, Mount Roskill and New Lynn turned blue for the first time in history, while the Green Party flipped Wellington Central and Rongotai.
Even voters in Māori electorates were lost. Four of the seven seats were won by Te Pāti Māori and the only decisive win for Labour was against its own former minister, Meka Whaitiri.
It was a complete drubbing for the party, which lost almost half its seats in Parliament and the first outright majority since 1993.
Turnout was dismal, with less than 60% of enrolled voters actually casting a ballot. Although, that number should rise as special votes are counted.
Some voters, who rewarded Labour for its early pandemic response, had become dissatisfied as the Reserve Bank lost control of inflation and the social cost of the response was felt.
Others were disillusioned by the party’s slow progress on climate change and tax reform, and opted to vote for the Green Party instead.
The leftist party underperformed relative to the polls, but still secured a record result with three electorates and 14 members of Parliament.
Green with envy
In an impassioned speech to supporters, co-leader Marama Davidson said the party had “defied history” and “turned Labour strongholds green”.
She criticised Labour for focusing its campaign on attacking National instead of pitching voters a progressive vision for New Zealand.
It fell to the other co-leader, James Shaw, to concede the left had lost the election. Chris Hipkins followed suit half an hour later and said he had called Luxon to congratulate him.
“When the tide comes in big, it almost invariably goes out big as well. That is the nature of politics,” Hipkins said.
The soon-to-be Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon focused his own speech on uniting the country, after a somewhat divisive campaign, as leaders often do.
“To all of those who voted for National: thank you, we won't let you down. And to all of those who didn’t vote for National: we won’t let you down either,” he said.
“Tomorrow morning, New Zealanders will wake up not only to a new day but the promise of a new government and a new direction … I cannot wait to get stuck in and get to work; because New Zealanders have chosen change and our government will deliver it”.
Well, good morning, New Zealand. Here's your new Parliament:
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