National's Nick Smith lost his Nelson seat. Photo / File
National's Nick Smith lost his Nelson seat. Photo / File
Two of National's longest-serving MPs, Nick Smith and Gerry Brownlee, have been ousted from their electorates, but will stay in Parliament courtesy of the party list.
When the two stalwarts attend National's first seriously shrunk caucus meeting, they will be joined by only a handful of fresh faces. One ofthose is former Air New Zealand boss, Chris Luxon, who comfortably won Botany.
Smith, a blue green, had held either the Tasman or Nelson seat since 1990, but in the last few hours it changed hands to Labour's Rachel Boyack. Labour's Sarah Pallott unseated Brownlee in Ilam, a seat he has held since entering Parliament in 1996.
If Smith and Brownlee are the biggest electorate scalps, the biggest winner on the night was Chloe Swarbrick, who came from behind to win Auckland Central.
National's Gerry Brownlee lost his Ilam seat. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Labour's Helen White was tipped to win the seat, prised off Labour by National's Nikki Kaye in 2008, and meant to go back into the Labour fold tonight.
Instead, Swarbrick and a campaign team of 700 ran a community-based campaign against the flat-footed White, who came within 1581 votes of Kaye in 2017.
The other big electorate upset has been Rawiri Waititi's win for the Māori Party in the seat of Waiariki where he has beaten Labour's Tamaki Coffey by the narrowest of margins - and taken the Māori Party back into Parliament.
Māori Party deputy leader John Tamihere was not so lucky, beaten by the sitting Labour MP Peeni Henare in the Maori seat of Tāmaki Makaurau. It was the second defeat for Tamihere in 12 months after coming a distant second to Phil Goff for the Auckland mayoralty.
Chloe Swarbrick put a big smile on Green faces tonight. Photo / Supplied
Among National MPs to lose their seats and be too far down the party list to keep their jobs are Lawrence Yule (Tukituki), Brett Hudson (Ōhāriu) and Dan Bidois (Northcote).
Labour has the opposite problem. It is forecast to have 22 new MPs, many of whom were standing in previously safe National strongholds - and not expected to win.
Labour's Terisa Ngobi, ranked 65 on the Labour Party list, earned a seat in Parliament by beating National's Tim Costley in Ōtaki with a comfortable 1500-plus vote margin.
