Labour has failed to win any extra seats in the special votes. The biggest messages of no confidence in its thumping have come from Auckland and Māori.
Analysis: The significant loss of Auckland safe Labour seats on election night has only been eased by Phil Twyford scraping across the line in the final count to win Te Atatū.
New Lynn, which has been held by Labour since the seat’s formation in 1963 swung to National on election night, and Paulo Garcia has safely kept it over Deborah Russell in the final count.
Hopes Labour would pull back Nelson have been fulfilled with Rachel Boyack securing a slim 29 vote majority, a seat for which National looks set to call for a recount.
Helen White has held onto Mt Albert, a seat previously held by Labour leaders Helen Clark, David Shearer, and Jacinda Ardern, but with a very weak majority of 20, which will be contested.
And that’s where the good news ends for Labour.
READ MORE: * National and Act lose majority in final vote count * Labour braces as special votes set to be revealed
Te Pāti Māori has secured a record-breaking win, dislodging two more seats from Labour, to claim six of the seven Māori electorates.
Kelvin Davis has definitively lost Te Tai Tokerau by 517 votes while Peeni Henare is behind Takutai Tarsh Kemp by four votes, which Henare has the backing of his leader, Chris Hipkins, to contest.
Davis had said ahead of the election that he would walk if he didn’t win his seat, as that was his mandate for being in Parliament.
Andrew Little has already said he won’t take up his list spot, which means Camilla Belich is into Parliament.
It could be a quick exit and fast return to the House for Tracey McLellan and Shanan Halbert if Davis does leave, and Grant Robertson has already indicated he plans to go once the party is settled into Opposition.
While National has lost two seats in the special vote count, they are both electorate seats that would have brought in newbie MPs Blair Cameron and Angee Nicholas, and don’t affect any sitting senior MPs.
National keeps the same five list spots for now and when Andrew Bayly almost certainly wins Port Waikato, he’ll move into an electorate seat entitling National to bring Nancy Lu in on the list.
The Green Party has also written its way into the history books gaining an extra list spot bringing its caucus up to 15 MPs, the most it’s ever had.
New Zealand First and the Act Party have had no changes to their election night seat results, however the 11 seats Act has won is the party’s best result ever.
Winston Peters’ power has been super-charged as a result and it’s no longer a case of Christopher Luxon wanting New Zealand First for security and stability but needing it to form a government.
The success of Te Pāti Māori should not be understated – just a week out from the election, co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer told Newsroom they didn’t anticipate winning Hauraki-Waikato or Te Tai Tonga.
On election night they secured both and the two seats they thought they had a real shot at in the North have now been won in the final count.
Their success has bumped Parliament’s total number of seats from 120 to 122 and once the Port Waikato by-election is held on November 25 the final number of seats will sit at 123.
All of that made it far more difficult for National and Act to hold on to the slim one-seat majority they had on election night to govern.
With the final count tallied the centre-right bloc has 59 seats, and even with the Port Waikato win National’s certain to get, it remains two short of the 62 seats needed.
Winston Peters’ power has been super-charged as a result and it’s no longer a case of Christopher Luxon wanting New Zealand First for security and stability but needing it to form a government.
Whichever way you cut it, it’s not only swing voters who voted Labour in 2020 in support of Ardern, but the grassroots of Labour’s party base in the country’s biggest city who deserted the red team this year.
National only picked up 38 percent of the party vote on the final count, which has put it in this position.
The caucus had been ambitious during the campaign it would hit 40 percent or more of the vote and in doing so would be able to leave New Zealand First out and govern with just Act.
While National hasn’t got the clean-cut option it hoped for in government it can take a lot from the trouncing it gave Labour in so many electorates, but particularly Auckland.
Hipkins says Labour started to lose Auckland in late 2021 and through into 2022, which basically reflects the end point of the enduring Auckland lockdowns.
The question for Hipkins now is whether he wants to remain Labour leader and if the party want him.
Whatever the party and Hipkins decide it’s almost inevitable Labour is going to go through a rough patch as it tries to pinpoint all the reasons why it lost as badly as it did.
Some in the party have already pointed to not engaging enough with ethnic communities, not spending enough time in Auckland, not implementing a wealth tax.
Whichever way you cut it, it’s not only swing voters who voted Labour in 2020 in support of Ardern, but the grassroots of Labour’s party base in the country’s biggest city who deserted the red team this year.
It’s an uphill climb winning back some of the centre and an even tougher one bringing back your so-called loyal party faithful.
When Hipkins looks back on his time in Parliament one of his proudest periods will be his time as Covid Minister and the tough decisions made in that role and the success of them for the first half of the pandemic.
It won’t be lost on him, however, that the thing he will be most praised for ultimately ended his time as Prime Minister.
Labour also has a big job ahead reconnecting with Māori who split their vote and wanted a Te Pāti Māori MP to represent them in their electorate.
That message will be felt deeply by Davis, Henare, and the Māori caucus campaign manager Willie Jackson.
It wouldn’t be surprising if all three join long-serving MP and minister Nanaia Mahuta outside Parliament.
As for National, now the big question mark is how long it will take to form a government.
Luxon’s not even confident enough to say it will happen before APEC in San Francisco in 10 days’ time.
Having New Zealand First as a security blanket would have been easier and faster to bolt on to any agreement with Act, but with Peters so well and truly in play, the job might have just got a whole heap tougher.
