Election 2020's Labour landslide sees a surge of new candidates set to enter Parliament, a handful of former MPs forced to say goodbye, the return of the Māori Party and the demise of NZ First.
The Electoral Commission has estimated there are about (480,000) special votes yet to be announced - making up about 17% of the vote that could impact the preliminary results.
Voter turn out was thought to be about 82.5% - up from 79.8% in 2017.
Here are the winners, losers, new faces and goodbyes based on the preliminary results.
The winners:
The Labour Party - securing a wave of red by forcing many once strong National seats to turn to their Labour candidates. The party pulled in 43 electorates (winning 29 in 2017), and with a party vote of 49% it comes with a total of 64 seats.
The Labour leader, in a speech to party faithful at Auckland Town Hall, pledged to rebuild New Zealand stronger following the pandemic.
ACT - A sizeable but not unexpected rise will bring once-lone MP David Seymour nine new MPs. For some time the party had been reliant on the electorate seat of Epsom to get into Parliament (winning just 0.5% of the party vote in 2017) - now that figure sits on 8%.
The once lone MP will now bring in nine others to Parliament.
Botany - One win for National is the return of the electorate Botany after Jami-Lee Ross left the party in a flurry of controversy last term, taking the seat with him as an independent MP. The win for National sees new MP and former Air NZ CEO Christopher Luxon enter Parliament.
Chlöe Swarbrick - A narrow win in Auckland Central give the Green Party its second ever electorate seat win, with the late Jeanette Fitzsimmons holding Coromandel for one term in 1999. Swarbrick defeated Labour’s Helen White, taking Auckland Central from National, who held it previously under Nikki Kaye.
The Māori Party - Rawiri Waititi has pulled the electorate of Waiariki back from Labour, with just 415 votes between him and Tāmati Coffey, meaning the Māori Party is back in Parliament.
As the Waiariki electorate winner, Tamihere said Waititi would be the party’s "only voice" in Parliament.
The losers:
The National Party - A slashing of the party vote (down to 26.8%) and electorate seats (down to 26 from 40) will mean the pool of MPs has dropped considerably. Leader Judith Collins last night pledged that "National will re-emerge a stronger disciplined and more connected party".
The National Party leader vows the party will take time to reflect and adapt.
NZ First - NZ First sunk below the Parliamentary threshold, with hopes pinned on Shane Jones in Northland turning out to be futile. The party won just 2.7% of the vote in the preliminary results last night, with Jones trailing significantly behind in Northland with only 11.5 per cent of the electorate vote.
Tāmati Coffey - The one Labour MP to lose an electorate seat held in the previous Parliament, Coffey would still return to Parliament on the Labour list and has not conceded the seat and is waiting for the special votes to be announced.
The new faces (based on preliminary results):
National: Nicola Grigg (Selwyn), Christopher Luxon (Botany), Joseph Mooney (Southland), Penny Simmons (Invercargill) and Simon Watts (North Shore).
Labour: Ayesha Verrall, Vanushi Walters (Upper Harbour), Camilla Belich, Naisi Chen, Ibrahim Omer, Rachel Brooking, Helen White, Barbara Edmonds, Angela Roberts, Shanan Halbert (Northcote), Neru Leavasa (Takanini), Tracey McLellan (Banks Peninsula), Steph Lewis (Whanganui), Rachel Boyack (Nelson), Arena Williams (Manuwera), Ingrid Leary (Taieri), Sarah Pallett (Ilam), Gaurav Sharma (Hamilton West), Terisa Ngobi (Ōtaki), Glen Bennett (New Plymouth), Tangi Utikere (Palmerston North) and Anna Lorck (Tukituki).
ACT: Brooke Van Velden, Nicole McKee, Chris Baillie, Simon Court, James McDowall, Karen Chhour, Mark Cameron, Toni Severin and Damien Smith.
Green Party: Teanau Tuiono, Elizabeth Kerekere and Ricardo Menéndez March.
Māori Party: Rawiri Waititi
The goodbyes: The MPs from the previous Parliament that stood in election 2020 but are likely to not return on preliminary results.
National: Jo Hayes, Dan Bidois, Brett Hudson, Lawrence Yule, Alfred Ngaro, Agnes Loheni, Parmjeet Parmar, Paulo Garcia, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, Tim Macindoe, Jonathan Young, Harete Hipango.
NZ First: Winston Peters, Fletcher Tabuteau, Tracey Martin, Shane Jones, Ron Mark, Darroch Ball, Mark Patterson and Jenny Marcroft.
Independent: Jami-Lee Ross
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