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| Debbie Ngarewa-Packer - Maori Party co-leader |
Labour has picked up Northland with Willow-Jean Prime winning a slim majority, which is significant because Labour hasn’t won there since 1938, and list MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer joins Rawiri Waititi in Parliament to issue in a resurgent Maori Party.
The news gets even worse for National in another two blue seats that used to be considered safe. Maungakiekie and Whangarei have also flipped, meaning National has had a comprehensive defeat in terms of overall electorate losses.
Today, RNZ reported:
Special votes: National loses two MPs, one each to Labour, Māori Party
The National Party has lost another two MPs on the final election result - with Labour and the Māori Party picking up an extra seat each.
Results on election night had Labour at 64 seats, National at 35, ACT at 10, the Greens 10 and the Māori Party with a sole electorate seat, but the counting of what was estimated to be nearly 500,000 special votes has delayed final results until today.
Labour's Priyanca Radhakrishnan has won Maungakiekie off National's Denise Lee by 635 votes.
Northland Labour candidate Willow-Jean Prime has beaten National's incumbent Matt King with a majority of 163 votes.
In Whangārei, Labour candidate Emily Henderson has beaten National's Shane Reti by 431 votes, but Reti stays on in Parliament making it in on the list.
All other electorate candidates leading on election night have been confirmed as winning their seats.
Overall seats in Parliament have changed with Labour picking up one - the seat filled by Henderson. National loses two with both Lee and King being tipped out of Parliament.
The Māori Party picks up one more seat, which goes to co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer who comes in on the list.
There really is no question that Judith Collins must now step aside. Even her deputy leader Gerry Brownlee is calling it a day which is a clear sign that he, like many other National Party MPs, have no confidence in their current leader.
The problem for National however is that there’s nobody likeable or competent enough to take Crusher’s place. How exactly are they meant to rebuild when the few MPs who remain are largely unknown or entirely incompetent?
It’s not as if the significant divisions within the party have miraculously been fixed either. Clearly things have now become even harder for the National Party to rebuild. In fact it's patently obvious that they're incapable of mounting any semblance of an opposition to a formidable Labour led Government who look set to win in 2023 as well.
