As the dust settles on the election results, we wrap up the biggest surprises of the night.
National’s share of the vote
Let’s get the biggest one out of the way first.
Everybody expected National to have the biggest piece of the parliamentary pie in this election but there appeared to be surprise all round when National sat around the 40% mark for much of the night.
The apparent appetite for political change also extended to several electorate shocks, with Labour losing some usually safe red seats, including New Lynn, Mt Roskill, and West Coast-Tasman.
But it was the Mt Albert electorate that delivered one of the bigger surprises of the night.
With National’s Melissa Lee and Labour’s Helen White essentially neck-and-neck for the win, this electorate will likely be decided by special votes.
That result is more a case of vote splitting within the left bloc than the blue wave of National sweeping through it, given the Greens’ Ricardo Menéndez March put in a strong showing in third place.
But it will still be a shock for the Labour party faithful to see National performing so strongly in a seat once held by Helen Clark and Jacinda Ardern.
The rise of Te Pāti Māori
With so much of the pre-election coverage focused on whether or not New Zealand First would hold the balance of power, everybody missed the march of Te Pāti Māori across the motu.
The party won one of the Māori electorates at the 2020 election. Last night, the party walked away with at least four of those electorates.
Which brings us to...
...the potential overhang
This strong performance by Te Pāti Māori could make coalition negotiations a little trickier for National and ACT.
Their four Māori electorate wins mean there will almost certainly be an overhang in parliament.
We already knew the next Parliament would have more seats than usual after the by-election scheduled for Port Waikato next month. That number will now likely increase again, meaning National and ACT will almost certainly have to involve New Zealand First to have a comfortable majority.
The exit of the Mother of the House
Labour is losing some big names following last night’s election results, but perhaps none bigger than Nanaia Mahuta.
The longest continuously serving female MP and former Foreign Minister lost her Hauraki-Waikato seat to Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke of Te Pāti Māori. At the age of just 21, Maipi-Clarke will become New Zealand’s youngest MP in more than 100 years.
Because Mahuta didn’t stand on Labour’s party list, she won’t be returning to parliament this term.
While this wasn’t entirely unexpected given polling suggested the Hauraki-Waikato race might be close, Mahuta’s exit will still be devastating for her party.
ACT and the Greens partying right next to each other
ACT and the Green Party might not have much in common when it comes to policy, but they apparently share similar tastes in booking venues for election night soirees.
The two parties managed to book their election night events in the same building in Auckland’s Viaduct, with the Greens opting for The Lula Inn and ACT heading to the Maritime Room.
Each group had their own reasons for celebrating – ACT is looking down the barrel of a coalition deal, while the Greens were cheering a handful of electorate victories and a strong party vote.
What we did expect
As always, election night delivered a few surprises, but it also confirmed one thing we did expect: that the final shape of the next government is likely still some weeks away yet.
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