Labour MP Shane Jones won't contest the Labour Party leadership but he has not ruled out vying for the deputy leader's post.
The former Northland-based Labour list MP, who lost the Tamaki Makaurau seat to Maori Party co-leader Dr Pita Sharples, said he may put in a bid for Annette King's job if fellow MPs supported him.
"I haven't ruled that out. I think I have a good role to play in the party but it's early days yet," Mr Jones said.
After a five-hour meeting with the Labour Party's caucus yesterday, Phil Goff confirmed he would step down as leader but remain MP for Roskill for at least the next term. Deputy leader Annette King will also step down.
Mr Jones was widely tipped as a future leader earlier in his career, but yesterday ruled himself out, saying he knew how to count. His comment referred to the numbers he would need to back him for the role. In the worst election result for Labour since the 1920s, the mates Mr Jones would need beside him in Parliament lost their own places in the House.
His comments also alluded to a sense of loss over the huge change that had rocked the party.
"Look at the six or seven people who are no longer back. They were friends of mine," he said.
One was Te Tai Tokerau Labour candidate and former list MP Kelvin Davis, who lost to Hone Harawira. Mr Davis' place was too low on the list to ride into Parliament on Labour's poor showing of only 27 per cent of the vote.
Mr Jones, who had encouraged Mr Davis to take up politics and helped him in 2008, said he was "personally pained" that his fellow Northlander had not made it back. He was also sorry to see Stuart Nash and Carmel Sepuloni miss out.
Yesterday's Labour caucus meeting contained "quite a few glum people" after the heavy election defeat, he said.
On who he would back to be leader once Mr Goff resigned on December 13, Mr Jones said: "I'll speak to all, then identify who I will back. The formal declaration has just been made and there will be a process to follow."
With Mr Davis out, he said Mr Harawira would be Northland's Maori voice.
"It's funny, because Hone brings his firebrand politics and the two National MPs are both right-wing guys, which is a reasonable description of Northland.
"Provincial conservatism is still prevalent in Northland. Those that are slightly moderate are not seen to be counted."
He described his duel with Dr Sharples in the Tamaki Makaurau seat as "close, but not close enough".
"As they say, 'a tight race with no cigar'."
Commenting on the way the Labour list of MPs was formulated, resulting in Mr Davis missing the cut, Mr Jones said everything boiled down to the election result.
"I voted for MMP and I think it will stay around for a heck of a long time. None of us anticipated the votes for Labour to be at this low level."
Mr Jones warned that Labour now had to undergo a transformation and to reconnect with Maori. It would take time to figure out how to resolve the failings that led to such a drubbing.
"Really, we've got to delve deeply into why three out of every four New Zealanders who cast a vote said we were unfit to govern."
Until the party understood and addressed why it had lost support, Labour would remain adrift.