New Zealand wraps up

Almost three weeks on, the final results from New Zealand’s national election (previewed here), including the postal and absentee votes, have just been published. (Unlike the procedure in Australia, there is no progress reporting of these.) As expected, the National Party’s result dropped off from its appearance on the night, from 39.0% down to 38.1%: still a big win (up 12.5% on its 2020 result), but only enough for 48 of the 122 seats, rather than 50 out of 121.*

Its likely coalition partner, the right-liberal ACT, has 8.6% and 11 seats. Three parties are clearly on the other side: Labour with 26.9% and 34 seats, the Greens with 11.6% and 15 seats, and the Māori Party with 3.1% and six seats. That makes a total of 59 seats supporting new prime minister Christopher Luxon and 55 opposed; the balance between them is held by the far-right New Zealand First, which returned to parliament with 6.1% of the vote and eight seats.

Luxon has promised to negotiate a deal with NZ First leader Winston Peters, whose bargaining power has improved considerably: National’s performance on the special votes was so poor that Peters could now give Labour (in conjunction with the Greens and Māori) a majority. But Labour has shown no interest; having twice had to rely on Peters in government it seems determined not to repeat the experience.

Labour’s Chris Hipkins, still in office in a caretaker capacity, thus falls another victim to the curse of the interim leader: he is the eighth prime minister since the Second World War to take on the job mid-term, and every one of them has gone on to lose the subsequent election.

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* The additional seat is due to the fact that the Māori Party, already overshooting its entitlement in electorate seats by one to create an overhang, ended up doing so by two. There will in fact be a 123rd seat, with a by-election to be held on 25 November for the National seat of Port Waikato, so National’s total is expected to come up to 49, but that will still leave it two short of a majority.