Underwhelming end to election night for Labour; key seats up in the air

Election night proved underwhelming for many, including the Labour Party.

It doesn’t yet know if it will receive the support required to govern, meanwhile candidates in some key electorates remain neck-and-neck with their rivals.

“It’s clear that we’re not going to know the exact shape of our next government for a little while longer yet,” Labour leader Chris Hipkins told party faithful gathered at the Upper Hutt Cosmopolitan Club for the party’s main election night function.

“But there are some things that are clear from tonight’s results. Our next Parliament is going to require all of us to compromise, to work together, and to find common ground.”

Hipkins said the people had spoken and it was now parliamentarians’ responsibilities to “make things work”.

“Politics can sometimes make it seem as though the things that divide us are bigger than the things that we have in common. But throughout this campaign, I’ve been reminded just how much we actually have in common.”

Hipkins kept his speech positive, yet brief, walking off stage to the crowd chanting, “Chippy, Chippy, Chippy”.

He didn’t hang around for a chat with media or those at the event.

Things wrapped up quickly thereafter, with the volunteers, staff and party members dispersing – quite possibly to other less official gatherings.

The sound system had been switched off by the time National leader Christopher Luxon delivered his speech at midnight, with the pack down well underway.

Looking ahead, Labour supporters will be watching whether Ginny Andersen does in fact take Hutt South, in a victory that would likely see one of National’s senior ministers, Chris Bishop, not return to Parliament.

Bishop is one of National’s star performers – responsible for Resource Management Act reform and housing and known to get along with National’s coalition partners – ACT and NZ First.

Speaking to the Herald, Andersen said many in her electorate had been unhappy with the coalition Government cutting jobs in the public service.

Labour’s Michael Wood and National’s Carlos Cheung are also in a tight race in Mt Roskill.

Wood had been one of the most regarded ministers in the Jacinda Ardern government. A firm backer of fair pay agreements and improving conditions for working people, Wood was someone touted a future leader.

His political career ended when he failed to correctly disclose what company shares he owned.

Securing Mt Roskill is Wood’s only way back into Parliament at this election.

Another seat under close scrutiny by Labour supporters is Wellington Bays, formerly Rongotai.

Council of Trade Unions economist and former economic adviser to Grant Robertson, Craig Renney, is up against the incumbent, the Green Party’s Julie-Anne Genter.

Winning the electorate seat is Renney’s ticket to Parliament.

“It’s a hugely diverse electorate, with hugely diverse needs,” Renney said.

“You have some of the most expensive housing, highest incomes in New Zealand, right next to some real pockets of huge poverty and deprivation.”

Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds, who comfortably held on to her Kenepuru seat, said she was most excited about enacting the party’s plan to ease the cost of living, should she become Finance Minister.

Labour campaigned on giving everyone three free GP visits a year, capping public transport fares, freezing petrol tax increases for three years, separating the supermarkets’ wholesale arms from their retail arms, and removing $5 prescription charges.

Asked by the Herald what she made of talk among some traders in financial markets that a left-wing Government’s bigger tax-and-spend plans could see the New Zealand dollar fall and inflation rise, Edmonds said markets were influenced by a raft of global issues.

She assured that if she became Finance Minister, she would stay focused on keeping inflation down.

“We’re going to be trying our best, particularly as we look at some of our capital investment, to ensure that we’re not going to be putting it all into one area to increase inflation of those goods and products.”

Asked what she made of Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong, Edmonds said she had only met Wong a few times, but found her “very respectful, courteous, and a lovely person”.

Jenée Tibshraeny is the Herald‘s Wellington business editor, based in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. She specialises in government and Reserve Bank policymaking, economics and banking.