Winners and losers

Winners, in alphabetical order:

Act: John Banks won Epsom.

Greens: Since 1999, the Green party vote has gone like this: 5.2, 7, 5.3, 6.7, and has shot up to 10.6 this time. That's a big win for them. But will it fall back once Labour support begins to rebuild? In my eyes, the Greens ran the best campaign too.

Labour: Excluding their final broadcast (only because I was in it), Labour ran the second best campaign. Trouble was, the people just weren't ready for change. But they did win Wigram and Te Tai Tonga.

Mana: Won Te Tai Tokerau, and that's about all.

Maori: Not much you can say there on the winning side, except that they remain at John Key's disposal.

National: Winners in the obvious sense of being back in office. But their party vote jumped from 44.9 to 48. Perhaps 2% of that was cannibalised from Act, but 47.99% (to be more exact) is the highest party vote ever under MMP for any party.

NZ First: Winners in the obvious sense that they are back in the House with 6.8% party vote. That figure, however, is not anywhere near their best (13.3 in 1996, and 10.4 in 2002). And, to get there this time, Peters exploited an own-goal by Key and Banks over tea.

United Future: Dunne won Ohariu.


Losers, in alphabetical order:

Act: A huge loss from 3.7 to 1.1% party vote, and consequent reduction from 5 MPs to 1. They were lucky to avoid oblivion.

Greens: Hard to find a sense in which they lost. It's normal for the Greens to register higher in pre-election opinion polls than on the day, so any disappointment that they didn't get more votes needs to be kept in perspective.

Labour: Their worst result ever under MMP. It can only be up from here.

Mana: Failed to get more than one MP.

Maori: Down from 5 MPs to 3, and more than a third of their party vote lost. The split with Harawira has been very damaging.

National: If you were hoping they'd govern alone, then you may feel it as a loss. Opinion polls were over-rating National consistently, and that's a topic for discussion in itself.

NZ First: They had nothing to lose!

United Future: Narrowly avoided utter defeat this time, but how long can Dunne keep hold of his seat?


So the real winners on the night were National and the Greens. If there were the equivalent of 'man of the match', I'd award it to the Greens - though we'd have to rename it 'persons of the match'.