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Sunday, November 8, 2026

David Farrar: A Labour led Government is incredibly improbable


The results so far have 67 seats for the Government parties and 64 seats for the others.

National has 42 electorate seats. Those with a small majority are:
  • Hamilton East 456
  • Wairarapa 139
It is quite possible Wairarapa could flip on the specials votes but not likely Hamilton East would. If Hamilton East flips then you have Govt 66, Others 64.

Now on the party vote, National lost 2 seats on specials at the last election, and 1 seat on the elections before that. However due to overhang, losing seats on the party vote will not drop National’s number of seats. So the Government stays at say 66 (if Wairarapa flips).

The list seats on the provisional vote are:

116 Greens
117 Labour
118 NZ First
119 National
120 Labour

The worst case scenario is National and NZ First both lose a seat. This would take the Government to 65 seats. You would need both those seats to go to Labour and Greens to take the other parties to 66. Only then could Labour form a Government.

So for Labour to form a Government you need the following:
  1. National loses Wairarapa
  2. NZ First loses a list seat (not happened under MMP so far)
  3. Both Labour and Greens gain a list seat
  4. Opportunity to fail to negotiate an agreement with National (largest party)
  5. Labour negotiates an agreement with Greens, Te Pati Maori and Opportunity, giving them a one seat majority
So it is mathematically possible, but highly improbable. If you end up with 65 seats for each bloc, then Opportunity and National would have to reach an agreement (as Opportunity would be unable to get Labour across the line), or force a second election which the public would hate.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders

10 comments:

Chuck Bird said...

Luxon should do the decent thing and resign as the leader. If he had not pushed the ticks-blue nonsense the right would be a lot further ahead.

Janine said...

My takeaway from election night: It didn't need to be like this. National voters don't appear to understand MMP. ACT and NZF voters played their part. National MPs received huge electorate vote totals. Where were the reciprocal ACT and NZF party votes? Some National- won electorates still had huge National party votes.
For all her talk, Chloe Swarbrick did pretty well with the split party vote strategy.
ACT, NZF, The Greens and The Maori Party grasp the consequences. National Party voters need to get much smarter.

Anonymous said...

Matter of time - Luxon is a dead man walking. Losing as big as he has after one term and showing that he is completely clueless about how to really win elections - unforgivable.

Anonymous said...

coukd easily flip depending on overseas and specials which, in the recent past, have favoured LGTPM and now maybe TOP. Could be a one seat LGTPMTOP majority. Seems to have been a solid protest vote for TOP perhaps? The tactic of split voting worked for the Greens and TPM . Both Nats and opposition end up with overhangs that seem to almost cancel out one another

Anonymous said...

Great result with the voter enrolment restrictions. We’ll see how it plays out. But at this stage it looks like a masterstroke for our side. And if Labour doesn’t get in, they can’t change it back!

Anonymous said...

Fantastic strategy from the coalition. Autonomously changing election rules while you’re in power might be the best way for the right bloc going forward. Just imagine how much further we can restrict the left in the next 3 years. We can’t give up the power now that we have the chance.

Bill T said...

Luxon will go and soon, Erica is the only option and that will reveal polling lift very quickly.

Anonymous said...

Just did some research about the genesis of MMP in Germany. It started with one vote per person but in 1953 the "big improvement" started: the two-vote system, making the system still more personal. You could vote for the local candidate you wanted, WITHOUT hurting the party you preferred. With HIS stupidity, Luxon has potentially hurt us all and his senior Ministers. We still want the right bloc to represent us but this time around (if it happens) he'd better damned well get with the program and we rely on his coalition partners to make him represent us - not his vanity or his Party!

Anonymous said...

No restrictions just register in time like in the uk where labour won

Anonymous said...

Luxon said he wouldn’t negotiate with TOP. He unequivocally ruled it out. So those negotiations, if relevant, will amount to a very quick phone call.

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