pn586. Special votes results. Wins for Labour, Greens and the Maori Party

We have so much to be thankful for.  

As Aotearoa waited for the election special votes results there was no talk of violence in the streets or threatened endless litigation. Our citizens are more tolerant of opposition and more liberal than the citizens of the divided nation misnamed the United States of America. A womanising  egotistical, vain, ignorant and self-serving person would never be Prime Minister here.

So —feeling rather proud of ourselves— let us turn to the special votes announced this afternoon. 

National's agonies continue with its loss of two more seats, and Labour won three electorates that it lost on election night.

In Maungakiekie Labour's Priyanca Radhakrishnan won by a 635 majority over National's Denise Lee. In Northland, Willow-Jean Prime defeated Matt King by a 163 vote majority, while in Whangārei, Emily Henderson won over Shane Reti with a 431 vote majority. Reti will, however, retain a seat in Parliament. 

The Green's Chloe Swarbrick held on to Auckland Central doubling her election night lead of 1068, and Rawiri Waititi held his hat on to hold Waiariki and add  second Maori Party seat.

Gerry Brownlee has resigned as National deputy leader.

The new 120-seat parliamentary line up is:

Labour up one to 65 seats

National down two to 33 seats

ACT and Greens are unchanged each with 10 seats 

And the Maori Party gained a second seat.

P.S.

I opened by saying we have so much to be thankful for compared with Trump America, but I may have spoken too soon. A Massey University non-scientific  survey showed that Trump has a significant number of supporters down under. Click here to read.  

-- ACW