An election night of celebrations, sadness, surprises, and uncertainty

Monday, 16 October 2023

Saturday’s election result seemed straightforward. And then it wasn’t. As Mike White and Nikki Macdonald discover, the surprises kept on coming.

Democracy arrived in a Nissan ute, then in a nana-wagon, shortly after breakfast on Saturday.

They arrived at election booths in vans and sedans.

They arrived in droves, and dribbles, minds made up, ready to cash their three-yearly currency of two ticks, like kids with rare pocket money.

And at the end of the day, at the end of it all, what did they get?

Well, slim certainty, at best.

National’s Christopher Luxon, bathed in blue just before midnight at his party HQ, anointed as our next prime minister.

David Seymour and ACT dancing a merry jig harbourside in Auckland, knowing their support offered Luxon a path to power.

And a few hundred kilometres to the north, Winston Peters and NZ First, circling, defying, waiting.

Election night 2023 was always meant to be about Peters.

Journalists, hard-pressed against deadlines, had already pre-written prescient pieces about him holding the balance of power - Winston the kingmaker, Winston the comeback kid.

Having been turfed from Parliament again in 2020, NZ First had achieved a remarkable resurrection, and from early evening, it was clear they’d gained just over 6% of the vote.

Yet for hours, barely anyone mentioned Peters.

Initial counts from around the country quickly painted a picture of National having won 40% of the vote, edging to 42% around 8pm.

ACT had another 9% - together it was enough to govern.

Meanwhile, the scale of Labour’s humiliation was quickly clear, mired around 26%, and never getting much higher, signalling an end to Chris Hipkins’ time as prime minister.

“It’s not over till the fat lady sings,” a fresh-faced and hopeful Labour supporter told 1News at 8.25pm from Labour’s headquarters in the Lower Hutt Town Hall.

Those numbers are mostly advance voting, assured Finance Minister Grant Robertson, not long after. That won’t pick up the change in campaign momentum in the past few days, when Chippy chucked off Covid and found renewed fervour for small talk, along with talking a big game at the last leaders’ debate, he soothed.

Ten minutes later, campaign chair Megan Woods read from the same script. “Without doubt a difficult night, but there’s still a long way to go,” was her optimistic take, after she’d edged back in front in her never-National Wigram electorate.

The two main parties’ fortunes sparked a slew of primary-coloured hyperbole and strained metaphors from commentators: Bluenami. The big blue bulldozer going through the red wave. Blue moon. Blue rain.

National deputy leader Nicola Willis appeared briefly in shiny blue, and added welcome perspective that the biggest event for her that day was seeing three of her children star in a production of Peter Pan.

Luxon’s family appeared outside their gate to deliver pizzas and party pies to journalists, and were ambushed by reporters wanting political scraps.

The party’s Ilam candidate, Hamish Campbell, appeared just after 9pm, tie slightly askew, the first sign of celebrations kicking off as he sensed he’d regained the seat for National.

Soon, Grant Robertson was admitting to reporters that “the time-for-a-change narrative is really hard to fight,” before being swiftly dumped mid-interview, as Newshub cut to Green MP Chloe Swarbrick, celebrating winning Auckland Central again.

“We did this two times over, baby,” she shouted, howling victory from the podium, while not mentioning the Greens had again failed to match pre-election predictions, and were now impotent in Opposition, thanks to Labour’s implosion.

She was followed by the party’s jubilant co-leader, Marama Davidson, in shimmering kākāriki, saluting the party’s efforts in bringing down two Labour strongholds - Wellington Central and Rongotai, as well as approaching its biggest-ever crop of MPs.

Te Pāti Māori also took a bite out of Labour, and at one stage was shaping to hold six of the seven Māori seats, before two became too close to call.

Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer summed it up with a wow. “Just amazing… Wow, who would have thought, three years ago?”

To a soundtrack of the Pātea Māori Club performing Poi E, everyone highlighted a generational change within these electorates, with 21-year-old Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, the country’s youngest MP, ousting our longest-standing wahine Māori MP and former foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta.

And in Te Tai Tonga, Tākuta Ferris rolled Rino Tirikatene, ending the incumbent’s hold on the electorate of more than a decade, and collapsing another family dynasty stronghold.

And then there was Winston, sequestered in a room at Russell’s Duke of Marlborough Hotel, sending out his lieutenant, Shane Jones, to face reporters shortly after 7.30pm.

Jones had spent the day fishing, hooking snapper near Roberton Island, so was in good spirits, predicting NZ First’s vote would rise beyond 6%.

It barely did.

And hence why, as everyone predicted a simple National-ACT government, Winston was considered a coalition irrelevance.

Even when he told his supporters, under the hotel’s gleaming chandeliers, “We have done the impossible,” few were paying attention to what he had done, or how far he’d brought the party.

During the campaign, Christchurch shop Rollickin Gelato created politician-themed ice creams.

Luxon got Blueberry Lux, Seymour got crowd-pleaser David Smore, and Hipkins got Orange Choc Chippy. There was vegan sorbet for James Shaw, and Rawiri’s Raspberry. But NZ First didn’t even rate a mention, never mind a personalised scoop.

That might have been because in January the party was polling just 2.2% - below even the 2.6% that sent Peters’ party packing at the 2020 election. And when the 2023 campaign kicked off at the beginning of September, the party was still clawing at Parliament’s door, at 4.6%.

But as other campaigns stuttered, NZ First’s support climbed.

When Luxon begrudgingly announced he was prepared to deal with Peters, its numbers got a crucial bump.

And as election night progressed, and National and ACT’s numbers slid, and their majority slipped to one, the spectre of Winston Peters being pivotal in any negotiations, and any coalition, suddenly re-emerged as a reality.

Around 10pm, Labour leader Chris Hipkins wordlessly exited his house, shoulders sagging, crushed with disappointment.

Fronting supporters in Lower Hutt, he talked of Labour’s achievements, their challenges. He looked exhausted.

He talked of how many doors they’d knocked on during the campaign, but the results made it clear few had let them in.

He became teary while thanking his family “for everything you have done for me”.

Polictical pundit Paddy Gower chanted that Labour’s performance was dire, disgusting.

But right then, few placed the blame entirely on Hipkins, who’d only been prime minister for nine months following Jacinda Ardern’s abdication.

It was politics. And politics was shitty.

“Democracy can be pretty brutal at times,” Hipkins later noted.

Well after 11pm, Christopher Luxon was driven from his Remuera home, and entered his party’s campaign celebrations, high-fiving and hugging.

“Thank you, thank you,” he exhaled as he reached the stage, before insisting he would deliver for every New Zealander.

He wore a small silver fern on his suit’s lapel. The crowd chanted the party’s slogan “Back on track”.

He called New Zealand “the best country on planet Earth”.

And then, after myriad thank yous, and earnest talk of unity, Luxon walked from the stage, waving and thumbs-upping, taking his first steps to making true on all the pledges and promises he’d made.

Well after midnight, as tired bar staff circled election venues collecting glasses, party supporters began drifting home, some delirious, some distraught.

Rosettes that had seen battle before, best suits that had seen better days, heels that had begun pinching hours ago, filing out into the night, and thinking about setting their alarms for the All Blacks test a few hours away.

The airbrushed smiles candidates had sustained throughout the election campaign were allowed to slip, revealing true emotions, ranging from glee to glum.

There was a parade of shiny new MPs, beaming, seized with conviction to make the country a better place.

Within three years, some of them will inevitably become the Gaurav Sharmas of their generation, beset by silliness and scandal, engorged with idiocy, self-immolating in self-importance.

But as they went to sleep on Saturday, the new MPs were dreaming of what rich green-leather seat they’d occupy in Parliament, the staff they’d get, the baubles. What they should wear on their first day.

For every exultant newbie, there was an exiled former MP, wondering how many packing boxes they’d need for the framed photos and favourite books in their office, wondering what they should wear to forthcoming job interviews.

By morning, Luxon was wearing an All Blacks’ jersey, the team having delivered an immediate gift by edging Ireland.

He patiently parried questions of the immediate future, his key negotiators, and his strategy for dealing with Peters.

Shortly afterwards, Peters appeared on Russell’s waterfront, elusive, dismissive, his repeated gripes at the media in rhythm with the waves in the background.

He talked of how serious things were, and deep down everyone knew he was right.

Not just economically, or fiscally, but with what would happen in the coming days and weeks and perhaps months.

Nothing was going to be simple, little would be predictable. Much of it would come down to special votes and overhangs - and more than likely, Winston Raymond Peters, 78.

Ten days ago, at a Nelson market, where every political party had tables spread with promises and temptations, an ACT volunteer pounced on a passerby who’d slowed to glance at the information.

“Do you know where you’re going?” she asked the man with his weekend shopping. “Do you know which direction you’re heading?”

So many didn’t know, then.

And now, even with the election over, so many more are just as uncertain about where we’re all heading, and exactly what course is being charted for us in backrooms and boardrooms, by text and tense phone calls.

Everyone vaunts democracy. Nobody mentions how painful and prolonged it can be.