Te Pāti Māori saw a surge of support this election, with the party winning four electorates, bringing two new faces to Parliament as the Opposition for the next three years.
Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke won the Hauraki-Waikato electorate, ousting Labour's Nanaia Mahuta. Mahuta won the seat in 2008 when the electorate was created and kept it until last weekend.
Maipi-Clarke said being in Wellington was a "very huge culture shock," after not keeping an eye on the vote tally on Saturday night.
"I wasn't really looking at the results, [it was] an extra bonus win for us," said the new MP.
She said being in Parliament was a "different experience" and she was "soaking it all in as I go".
She said she saw photographs of her whanau on the walls of Parliament, calling it an "emotional experience".
"The first stop that I had gone to is Wiremu Katene's photo, which is my great-great-great-great grandfather, who was the first Māori minister- so that was very overwhelming," she said. Wiremu Katene was appointed to the Executive Council in 1872, becoming the first Māori Minister of the Crown.
Maipi-Clarke and Tākuta Ferris, who overtook Rino Tirikatene for the Te Tai Tonga electorate, paid homage to the Labour MPs they had replaced.
"We're not really here... to replace them, [we are] just trying to bring our voice up, bring our young people into the conversations," Ferris said.
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