New Zealand's general election is deadlocked and the country's next government may not be known for weeks, after counting on election night, Saturday, November 7, left the governing National Party and the Labour opposition locked together with 60 per cent of the vote counted.

Source: AAP

With 60 per cent of the count completed, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's centre-right National Party led the party vote with 29.4 per cent, just ahead of Chris Hipkins' Labour Party on 29.3 per cent, AAP reported. The two parties swapped places at the top of the count through the evening, and a narrow win for either bloc — or even a hung parliament — remained possible.

Seat projections from the Electoral Commission put the governing parties — National together with ACT and New Zealand First — on 67 seats, while Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party, joined by the centrist Opportunity Party, reach 63 seats, according to both AAP and QNC News reporting of the commission's figures.

Source: QNC News

The night brought heavy personal losses for the government. Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Defence Minister Paul Goldsmith all but conceded their electorate seats, and Speaker Gerry Brownlee was also among the casualties. 'It is looking very unlikely I will be returned,' Willis said, adding that a process of renewal was under way in her party.

Record nights for ACT and the Greens, and a new party in Parliament

ACT, led by David Seymour, climbed to a record 10.9 per cent of the party vote. 'It's going to take some time before it becomes clear,' Seymour said of the overall outcome, adding that it was a record result for ACT. The Greens also claimed a record 13.7 per cent. The Maori Party polled only 0.6 per cent of the party vote but led in five Maori electorates, which would return five members to Parliament.

The centrist Opportunity Party, on about 5.6 to 5.7 per cent, is heading into Parliament for the first time with around six seats. Those seats could be critical: AAP reported that Opportunity's members, along with the Maori Party's, will be central to whether the Labour-led side can assemble a majority.

Why the overhang matters

New Zealand votes under a proportional system in which each voter casts one vote for a local member and one for a party. If a party wins more electorate seats than its party-vote share would entitle it to, it keeps the extra seats — the overhang. National's party vote has fallen from 38 per cent at the 2023 election while it has held an edge in many electorates, putting it on track for an overhang that has complicated the arithmetic all night.

The six-week campaign was dominated by the cost of living. The contest was the second in a row between Luxon and Hipkins — the 'Battle of the Chrises' — after National ended six years of Labour government in 2023.