Final results in bold, (provisional results in brackets)

National 44.93% (45.45%) – 58 (59) seats
Labour 33.99% (33.77%) – 43 seats
Green 6.72% (6.43%) – 9 (8) seats
ACT 3.65% (3.72%) – 5 seats
Maori 2.39% (2.24%) – 5 seats (overhang)
Progressive 0.91% (0.93%) – 1 seat
United Future 0.87% (0.89%) – 1 seat

Basically National loses a seat, the Greens gain one. What is with kiwi’s overseas and nostalgically voting Green? Its all right for them, they don’t have to live here.

No change to the reigns of power or anything dramatic as the confidence and supply agreements are more than adequate but as David Farrar said on applying the St Lague formula:

National was at massive risk of losing a second seat as they hold Spot 120. Labour are in 121. National’s quotient is 9160.0 while Labour’s quotient is 9159.5.

If Labour had 40 more voters turn up (that is less than one voter per seat), then Damien O’Connor would be back in Parliament and Aaron Gilmore would have missed out. Or if 22 people who voted National had voted Labour, then Labour would have 44 seats and National 57.

This does raise the risk of Labour seeking a recount somewhat, though of course, there is no guarantee that’d help them.

Colin Espiner really should be more careful about what he writes on his blog.

Though I must admit I love the irony of him having to eat his words; last election he shot his mouth off too.

Good on him for following through. He is talking about writing a book of recipes if enough people decide they would like to contribute so I have offered him my news-print paper, speed-kills sign.

John Key
Prime Minister
Minister of Tourism
Ministerial Services
Minister in Charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service
Minister Responsible for the GCSB

Bill English
Deputy Prime Minister
Minister of Finance
Minister for Infrastructure

Gerry Brownlee
Leader of the House
Minister for Economic Development
Minister of Energy and Resources
Associate Minister for the Rugby World Cup

Simon Power
Deputy Leader of the House
Minister of Justice
Minister for State Owned Enterprises
Minister of Commerce
Minister Responsible for the Law Commission
Associate Minister of Finance

Tony Ryall
Minister of Health
Minister of State Services

Nick Smith
Minister for the Environment
Minister for Climate Change Issues
Minister for ACC

Judith Collins
Minister of Police
Minister of Corrections
Minister of Veterans’ Affairs

Anne Tolley
Minister of Education
Minister for Tertiary Education
Minister Responsible for the Education Review Office

Christopher Finlayson
Attorney-General
Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage

David Carter
Minister of Agriculture
Minister for Biosecurity
Minister of Forestry

Murray McCully
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Minister for Sport and Recreation
Minister for the Rugby World Cup

Tim Groser
Minister of Trade
Minister of Conservation
Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs
Associate Minister for Climate Change Issues

Wayne Mapp
Minister of Defence
Minister of Research, Science and Technology
Associate Minister for Economic Development
Associate Minister for Tertiary Education

Steven Joyce
Minister of Transport
Minister for Communications and Information Technology
Associate Minister of Finance
Associate Minister for Infrastructure

Georgina te Heuheu
Minister for Courts
Minister of Pacific Island Affairs
Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control
Associate Minister of Maori Affairs

Paula Bennett
Minister for Social Development and Employment
Minister for Disability Issues
Minister of Youth Affairs

Phil Heatley
Minister of Fisheries
Minister of Housing

Pansy Wong
Minister for Ethnic Affairs
Minister of Women’s Affairs
Associate Minister for ACC
Associate Minister of Energy and Resources

Jonathan Coleman
Minister of Immigration
Minister of Broadcasting
Associate Minister of Tourism
Associate Minister of Health

Kate Wilkinson
Minister of Labour
Minister for Food Safety
Associate Minister of Immigration

OUTSIDE CABINET:
Maurice Williamson
Minister for Building and Construction
Minister of Customs
Minister of Statistics
Minister for Small Business

Richard Worth
Minister of Internal Affairs
Minister for Land Information
Minister Responsible for Archives New Zealand
Minister Responsible for the National Library
Associate Minister of Justice

John Carter
Minister of Civil Defence
Minister for Senior Citizens
Minister for Racing
Associate Minister of Local Government

Rodney Hide
Minister of Local Government
Minister for Regulatory Reform
Associate Minister of Commerce

Heather Roy
Minister of Consumer Affairs
Associate Minister of Defence
Associate Minister of Education

Pita Sharples
Minister of Maori Affairs
Associate Minister of Corrections
Associate Minister of Education

Tariana Turia
Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector
Associate Minister of Health
Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment

Peter Dunne
Minister of Revenue
Associate Minister of Health

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE:
Lockwood Smith

I will not be giving stats on the number of women or breaking down the portfolios races as this is irrelevant; ministers should be chosen on the basis of their ability.

No major surprises really, the only thing I would comment on is the sheer number of portfolios on issues the government has no business touching or that are just dumb or paternalistic – women’s affairs is particularly grating as is broadcasting and arts, culture & heritage and the rugby world cup? does the government really have to run that?

Portfolios outside Cabinet:
Peter Dunne gets Minister of Revenue and Associate Minister of Health.

Policy Concessions Include:

• Maintain the policy, research and advocacy role of the Families Commission whilst seeking to achieve administrative efficiencies between the operations of the Families Commission and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner.
• Reducing elective surgery waiting lists by greater utilisation of private hospital capacity, in a planned way where this cannot be met by the public hospital system;
• Progressing the long-term medicines strategy for quality use of pharmaceuticals in the health sector, Medicines New Zealand, including the role Pharmac should play in that strategy.
• Support Public Private Partnerships for major roading infrastructure developments where these are deemed to be the preferred options regionally and nationally, such as the Transmission Gully highway.
• The government notes that United Future has been committed to income splitting as a key part of their tax policy and agrees to support appropriate legislation to First Reading in Parliament.
• Proceed with the establishment of a Big Game Hunting Council as part of a national wild game management strategy with a view to it becoming a statutory authority.
• And the government acknowledges United Future’s ongoing support and interest in the development of the Seniors’ Gold Card, the Community and Voluntary sector, and advancing the interests of the disability sector.

Most of it is the usual centrist stuff *sigh* but I will comment of the standouts.

The Families Commission was a dumb idea and it has been a dumb bureaucratic nanny-state money-gobbler, just like the Children’s Commission, ever since. So ugh! to that policy.

Income splitting is a positive move to lowering taxes but it adds complexity to the tax laws and does not benefit enough people. Lowering the top tax rates as the government are planning to to 30% would make the need for income splitting largely redundant.

Two Maori Party MP’s get portfolios outside Cabinet:

Dr Sharples gets Maori Affairs Minister, Associate Education Minister and Associate Corrections Minister.
Tariana Turia gets Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, Associate Health Minister and Associate Social Development Minister.

Policy Concessions Include:

• National offered a review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act to see if was working and whether there were any better alternatives.
• National will drop its opposition to the Maori seats and in turn, the Maori Party would drop its pursuit of entrenching the Maori seats and a group will be formed to look at constitutional issues including Maori representation.

Good on the Maori Party for pushing the Foreshore and Seabed Act issue. It is a shame to see that National has not framed the issue in terms of the affront to due process and instead is talking about all New Zealander’s being able to access the beach, as if that is somehow more important than human rights.

I am relieved to see there is no deal to entrench the Maori seats. The status quo of race based representation is abhorrent enough.

National and ACT’s confidence and supply agreement is available here online. Highlights are:

Two ACT MP’s get portfolios outside Cabinet:
Rodney Hide gets: Minister of Local Government, Minister of Regulatory Reform, Associate Minister of Commerce and a member of the Cabinet Expenditure Control Committee.

Heather Roy gets: Minister of Consumer Affairs, Associate Minister of Defence and Associate Minister of Education.

Areas of Co-Operation Are:

• Law and Order
• Climate Change
• Controlling Government Expenditure
• Tax
• Regulation
• Resource Management Act
• Education

Policy Concessions include:

• An advisory group to look at ways of closing the income gap with Australia by 2025 with the aim of stopping the exodus.
• Pursuit of a sustained lift in New Zealand’s productivity growth rate to 3% a year or more and the establishment of a high quality advisory group to investigate the reasons for the recent decline in New Zealand’s productivity performance
• National will, within 6 months, send ACT’s Taxpayer Rights Bill to the Finance and Expenditure Committee of Parliament as a government measure with the aim of passing into law a cap on the growth of core Crown expenses.
• National agrees to introduce ACT’s “Three Strikes Bill” and support it to Select Committee.
• The implementation of the Emissions Trading Scheme will be delayed until a review of New Zealand’s response on Climate Change with agreed draft terms of reference is completed, and the thermal generation ban will be repealed.
• An agreement that a medium-term goal be set for the top rate of tax to be 30 percent so NZ has a government that will reward and celebrate success – not punish it.
• National will explore the concept of a New Zealand Productivity Commission associated with the Productivity Commission in Australia in order to support the goals of higher productivity growth and improvements in the quality of regulation.
• An agreement to work together over time to increase education choices so that pupils and families have more freedom to select schooling options that best meet the individual needs of their children.
• Ongoing discussion is agreed to on ACT’s most excellent 20 point plan.

Sounds promising. I was worried that Key’s pursuit of Dunne and the Maori Party meant something far more centrist would be announced. I dislike all the bureaucratic committees that will be funded and set up to talk about everything but hopefully something positive will come out of it. Its better than what we had anyway.

Details on United Future and the Maori Party’s baubles are yet to be announced – I hope the Maori Party have stood firm on some aspect of the Seabed and Foreshore as ACT should support them on that and there will be those in National who were appalled at that particular affront to due process too.

But who phones 111 when they realise, on election night, that the left have lost and that National will lead the country?!?!?

And WHY???!!??

What littany of lies and propaganda about the right would have had to have been put up such people by the left to make them do this? (or are they just incapable of understanding the political process and the policies of the right?)

Liberty Scott’s comments are on the button; extract from: What DID leftwing campaigners tell some people?

This report that some people rang the Police when the election results were coming through is alarming in several ways:

1. That people thought their benefits would disappear because National was being elected. What sort of untrammelled nonsense have the left been spreading about such a situation? How despicable are those who promote such lies among people who are clearly rather unhinged? How many were persuaded to vote Labour or Green or else their benefits would dry up?

2. What do people think the Police will do? Arrest John Key and Rodney Hide? Call an end to general elections? Do they think when things don’t go their way the Police should be called in? How scary is that?

3. Most disconcerting is the helpless dependency of such people who think the only way forward is to remain dependent on money taken by force from others. How insipid has the welfare state become that there are people terrified at the prospect of having to earn themselves a living?

Sorry folks, it’s when the word Libertarianz replaces National that you might be worried, but by then the culture would have to have changed so radically that you wouldn’t be scared anymore.

The allocation is:

National 59
Labour 43
Greens 8
Maori 3 (+2 overhang)
United
Future 1
ACT 5

Now who is most at risk from specials? They are the party that is in List Spot 120. And that is National.

The quotient for National is 951145/117 = 8129.4. And who is in spot 121? Labour with 706666/87 = 8122.6.

Very roughly if Labour pick up 600 more votes relative to National, then they get one more List MP, and National loses one. That is not at all impossible.

But could someone else grab it off National. The Greens have spot 124, being 134622/17 = 7918.9. They would need to gain an extra 3,600 votes (on top of their existing proportion of votes) from specials. That is a bit of an ask, but they have done well on special traditionally.

The next candidate on each relevant list is Conway Powell for National, Damien O’Connor for Labour and Kennedy Graham for the Greens.

Despite efforts to be inclusive, my sister and brother-in-law preferring to manipulate visually impaired voters into voting Green instead (they had to take Rich’s mum to vote and teased me via text that they refused to take her unless she agreed to vote Green and that when they took her and she couldn’t see the ballot they voted Greens for her).

It was fair to say that our guests did not represent a cross section of the electorate, though a few brought offerings that suggested otherwise:

The bearers of the strawberries came in waving a Chris Carter pamphlet and a palm frond as a guesture of green peace and his wife brought a plate of green animal biscuits.

The offerings were pretty clever and they all tasted good too. On the table were:

[I have included the colours for the benefit of our overseas traffic]

Representing National (Blue and White)
Creme fraiche and blueberry tartlets drizzled with blue jelly
A bowl of blue jellybeans and white milk bottle lollies
Blue jelly and whipped cream – though I forgot about it and left it in the fridge

Representing ACT (Predominantly Yellow with a bit of Blue)
Banana muffins with blue icing
Chips and cheese and onion dip
Homemade pizza with dark olives (giving a bluey hue) and a thick layer of yellow cheese hiding the red tomato paste base (kinda clever as ACT formed out of a Labour Party split)
Mango chilly philly (which is yellow) with yellow crackers
Hot chips

Representing the Family Party (Yellow and Black)
Cashew nuts with raisins
Samosas (yellow outside, very dark filling)

Representing Labour (Red and White)
Strawberries and whipped cream
Tomato sauce (ketchup) for ACT’s chips

Representing the Greens (Green)
Green animal biscuits

It was all great conversation, good wine, lots of buzz and a great outcome but for Stephen Franks missing out – we all felt a bit deflated when we realised that he had missed both the List and Wellington Central.

What did everyone else get up to last night? How did you all pass the evening?

National 59 (46.8%)
Labour 44 (34.6%)
Green 10 (8.1%)
ACT 3 (2.6%)
Maori 4 (2.4%)
United Future 1 (0.5%)
Progressive 1 (0.2%)

• John Key is New Zealand’s new Prime Minister
• Helen Clark is standing down
• Labour will be in opposition with a new leader
• NZ First and Winston Peters are gone
• Roger Douglas is back
• National List MPs include up to Conway Powell number 59
• Labour List MPs include up to Stuart Nash number 36

(Special votes may affect some of the above a little)