Four electorate results have changed following the counting of special votes, with Te Pāti Māori scooping another two seats from senior Labour MPs.
The final election results were released this afternoon, confirming that National and ACT will need New Zealand First to form a government.
Those results also brought an end to a few electorate races that were too close to call on election night.
Nelson
Labour’s Rachel Boyack will return as Nelson’s MP for another term after all.
Boyack had been trailing National candidate Blair Cameron by 54 votes at the end of the preliminary count on October 14, but she has won the electorate by a margin of just 29 votes in the final count.
Cameron will no longer be heading to parliament, but did tell Boyack he is likely to ask for a re-count.
Te Atatū
Labour’s Phil Twyford will also be breathing a sigh of relief as the final results confirm he has, in fact, retained his Te Atatū seat.
National’s Angee Nicholas led the usually safe Labour electorate by 30 votes in the preliminary count but has ended up short of victory by 131 votes.
Nicholas will also no longer be heading to parliament on the list.
Tāmaki Makaurau
Te Pāti Māori’s domination of the Māori seats continues, with its candidate Takutai Tarsh Kemp ousting Labour’s Peeni Henare from Tāmaki Makaurau by just four votes.
Labour MP Willie Jackson said the party will request a re-count in the electorate.
Henare, a minister in the previous government, will still return to parliament on Labour’s list.
Te Tai Tokerau
Mariameno Kapa-Kingi has also flipped another seat in favour of Te Pāti Māori.
She had been trailing Labour’s Kelvin Davis by 487 votes on election night, but has won the electorate by a margin of 517 after special votes.
Davis had held Te Tai Tokerau since 2014. He will still get to parliament on Labour’s list but said before the election that he would “move on and look at other things” if he failed to win Te Tai Tokerau this time.
Willie Jackson said today he is also not confident Davis will stay on in politics.
These two electorate victories mean Te Pāti Māori holds six of the country’s seven Māori seats, delivering the party its best-ever election result.
It also means there will be 122 seats in the House instead of the usual 120. That parliamentary overhang will increase to 123 following the Port Waikato by-election.
Other close results
National’s Vanessa Weenink has now increased her majority over Labour’s Tracey McLellan in the Banks Peninsula electorate from 83 votes to 396 votes.
National’s Paulo Garcia has also increased his majority over Labour MP Deborah Russell in New Lynn by 483 votes to 1013 votes. This is the first time Labour has not won the New Lynn seat.
Finally, Labour’s Helen White has held on to that other Labour mainstay, Mt Albert, by the skin of her teeth.
It comes as the Nelson and Te Atatu electorates flipped from National to Labour after special votes were counted. (Source: 1News)
Having led National’s Melissa Lee by 106 votes on election night, that majority has been sliced to just 20 votes in the final count.
SHARE ME