2005 New Zealand general election

2005 New Zealand general election

← 2002 17 September 2005 (2005-09-17) 2008 →
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All 121 seats in the House of Representatives, including one overhang seat 61 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	2,304,005 (80.92%) 3.94%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Helen Clark Don Brash Winston Peters Party Labour National NZ First Leader since 1 December 1993 28 October 2003 18 July 1993 Leader's seat Mount Albert List List (lost Tauranga) Last election 52 seats, 41.26% 27 seats, 20.93% 13 seats, 10.38% Seats before 51 27 13 Seats won 50 48 7 Seat change 1 21 6 Electorate vote 902,072 40.35% 4.34 902,874 40.38% 9.80 78,117 3.49% 0.49 Party vote 935,319 41.10% 0.16 889,813 39.10% 18.17 130,115 5.72% 4.66   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Rod Donald Jeanette Fitzsimons Tariana Turia Pita Sharples Peter Dunne Party Green Māori Party United Future New Zealand Leader since 21 May 1995 7 July 2004 16 November 2000 Leader's seat List List Te Tai Hauāuru Tāmaki Makaurau Ohariu-Belmont Last election 9 seats, 7.00% – 8 seats, 6.69% Seats before 9 1 8 Seats won 6 4 3 Seat change 3 3 5 Electorate vote 92,164 4.12% 1.23 75,076 3.36% new 63,486 2.84% 1.52 Party vote 120,521 5.30% 1.70 48,263 2.12% new 60,860 2.67% 4.02   Seventh party Eighth party   Leader Rodney Hide Jim Anderton Party ACT Progressive Leader since 13 June 2004 27 July 2002 Leader's seat Epsom Wigram Last election 9 seats, 7.14% 2 seats, 1.70% Seats before 9 2 Seats won 2 1 Seat change 7 1 Electorate vote 44,071 1.97% 1.58 36,638 1.64% 0.20 Party vote 34,469 1.51% 5.63 26,441 1.16% 0.54
Results by electorate, shaded by winning margin
Prime Minister before election Helen Clark Labour Subsequent Prime Minister Helen Clark Labour

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• Results of the 2005 New Zealand General Election

The 2005 New Zealand general election on Saturday 17 September 2005 determined the membership of the 48th New Zealand Parliament. One hundred and twenty-one MPs were elected to the New Zealand House of Representatives: 69 from single-member electorates, including one overhang seat, and 52 from party lists (one extra due to the overhang).

No party won a majority, but the Labour Party of Prime Minister Helen Clark secured two more seats than nearest rival, the National Party of Dr Don Brash. With the exception of the newly formed Māori Party, which took four Māori electorates from Labour, most of the other parties polled lower than in the previous election, losing votes and seats.

Brash deferred conceding defeat until 1 October, when National's election-night 49 seats fell to 48 after special votes were counted. The official count increased the Māori Party share of the party vote above 2%, entitling them to three rather than two seats from the party vote. With four electorate seats, the election night overhang of two seats was reduced to one, and as National had the 120th seat allocated under the party vote, National lost one list seat (that of Katrina Shanks) that they appeared to have won on election night.^[1]

The election was a strong recovery for National which won 21 more seats than at the 2002 election, where it suffered its worst result in its history, and the highest party vote percentage for the party since 1990; indeed, National saw its first vote share gain since 1990. Despite its resurgence, National failed to displace Labour as the largest party in Parliament. National's gains apparently came mainly at the expense of smaller parties, while Labour won only two seats less than in 2002.

On 17 October, Clark announced a new coalition agreement that saw the return of her minority government coalition with the Progressive Party, with confidence and supply support from New Zealand First and from United Future. New Zealand First parliamentary leader Winston Peters and United Future parliamentary leader Peter Dunne became ministers of the Crown outside Cabinet, Peters as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Dunne as Minister of Revenue. The Green Party which had supported Labour before the election received no cabinet post (see below), but gained several concessions from the coalition on matters such as energy and transport, and agreed to support the government on matters of confidence and supply.