Last night, the people of New Zealand spoke, and while we don’t have all the results yet due to the catastrophic freak fires at seventeen different polling places – and the unfortunate incident in which Stuff’s Patrick Gower became so hungry for politics he ate an entire box of marked ballots – it remains undeniable that kiwis united in voice to send one clear message: they want seven quite distinctly different things which have varying amounts of support that depend on age, gender, geographic location, and economic circumstance. And also yacht ownership status.
The result sends a resounding message to the government that the people feel myriad different things to the tune of various percentages, in what marks the biggest landslide for varying percentages in many years.
Shockwaves were felt across the nation as a series of small earthquakes occurred in the Wairarapa, Southland, and the Auckland Islands. People felt the impact of the votes, too.
“It really is a historic night”, said Shelley Lyall, 53 and 7 months, who was attending tonight’s Labour Party celebrations in Hamilton East for 29% of the night. “I’ll be here for just a bit longer, but then I’ll be heading over to the ACT celebrations down the road for about 11% of the night. I was just with the Greens earlier.
“It’s such a great night for a range of differing and often contradictory opinions.”
Speaking ahead of his leader tonight at Labour Party HQ in Upper Hutt, lost farmhand Kieran McAnulty celebrated the results.
“You did it New Zealand. You bloody did it,” he thundered to raucous applause. “You told them. You told this government, loud and clear: some of us like you, some of us don’t, and some of us feel vaguely indifferent or know nothing about politics.”
The crowd erupted, which would later prove a real challenge for the cleaners.
The mood was similar at National Party HQ on Auckland’s waterfront, where party president Sylvia Wood told supporters that the results were a resounding endorsement of the status quo.
“They said you wanted change, New Zealand,” she said. “They said you were fed up with how things have been. The Labour Party said ‘Better Starts Now’. But you said no! You said with one voice that you’d continue to support a range of different things, just as it was in 2023, and just as it is now.
“Some of you want better to start now, some of you thought we tried better but didn’t like it much, and so many of you want worse.
“Some of you wanted to finish the job, some of you want to leave it unfinished, and some of you want to burn it all to the ground.
“God bless you, New Zealand.”
Perhaps the party most elated with voters’ endorsement of various percentages was Opportunity, whose leader Qiulae Wong couldn’t be happier with the outcome.
“The percentages are very varied. We’re getting a really unequivocal message from kiwis out there, which is ‘I don’t know, you figure it out’, and that’s exactly what we wanted to hear tonight,” she said. “It’s hopeful.
“And I just want to add, I just want to say to the people of New Zealand, we’ve heard you. You want no new taxes, more new taxes, oil exploration and none of it, better healthcare that’s worse, education but not for our kids, and apparently some of you want the pork calzone with extra red onion. We’ll see what we can do about that.
“But nonetheless, we promise to work hard to advocate for, negotiate for, and fail to achieve, all of that together, and sometimes apart.”
It was a long day for New Zealanders, who having gone out and expressed their views at the ballot box, retired in their millions to tune in to their preferred broadcaster, and hear series of expert panelists tell them what they said they wanted.
For full preliminary results, be sure to visit our state of the art election tracker, Electoral Body: https://thecivilian.co.nz/electoral-body/