Election winners and losers: the surprising victory of Chloe Swarbrick, Gerry Brownlee and Nick Smith

Two of National’s oldest MPs, Nick Smith and Gerry Brownlee, have been ousted from their constituencies, but will remain in Parliament courtesy of the party’s list.

When the two stalwarts attend National’s first caucus meeting, they will be joined by a handful of new faces. One of them is former Air New Zealand boss Chris Luxon, who comfortably won Botany.

Smith, a teal green, had held the job of Tasman or Nelson since 1990, but in the last few hours he changed hands to Rachel Boyack from Labor. Sarah Pallott, a Labor member, ousted Brownlee in Ilam, a seat she has held since entering Parliament in 1996.

If Smith and Brownlee are the biggest scalps of the electorate, the biggest winner of the night was Chloe Swarbrick, who came from behind to win Auckland Central.

Helen White of Labor was chosen to win the seat, overtaken by Nikki Kaye of National, in 2008, and intended to return to the Labor fold tonight.

Instead, Swarbrick and a campaign team of 700 people conducted a community campaign against flatfoot whites, who came within 1,581 votes from Kaye in 2017.

The other major setback for the electorate has been Rawiri Waititi’s victory for the Maori Party at the Waiariki headquarters, where he has beaten the Labor Party’s Tamaki Coffey by the narrowest margin and brought the Maori Party back to Parliament.

The leading Maori Party MP John Tamihere was not so lucky, as Labor MP Peeni Henare at the Maori headquarters of Tāmaki Makaurau was defeated. It was Tamihere’s second loss in 12 months after coming a distant second to Phil Goff in Auckland City Hall.

Among the national MPs who have lost their seats and are too low on the party’s list to keep their seats are Lawrence Yule (Tukituki), Brett Hudson (Ōhāriu) and Dan Bidois (Northcote).

Work has the opposite problem. There are expected to be 22 new MPs, many of whom were in previously secure national strongholds, and were not expected to win.

Terisa Ngobi of Labor, ranked 65th on the Labor Party list, won a seat in Parliament by beating Tim Costley of National in Ōtaki by a comfortable 1,500 vote margin.