At 2PM today (7 October 2017), the Electoral Commission announced the final vote results, including some 446,287 special votes cast (17% of total votes cast).
As a result, National has lost two seats and the Greens and Labour each pick up one seat in Parliament. The Green’s Golriz Ghahraman and Labour’s Angie Warren-Clark enter Parliament on the Party List.
At the next election, Labour and the Greens must be better placed to strategically address “fake news” from the National Party. Labour and Green strategists must be conscious that the Nats will stoop to lies if their pre-election polling shows them at-risk of losing. A rapid-response task-force should be ready and well-resourced to counteract such lies; to do it immediately, and with energy.
The jaw-dropping, gob-smacking, forehead-slapping gall of Winston Peters! For him to demand clarity and full disclosure from others – when he himself has made a fetish of not disclosing to voters who he will coalesce with, post-election – takes the Hypocrisy-of-the-Year Award from National and plants it firmly on his own Italian suited jacket-lapel.