Executive summary

• The 2005 General Election was New Zealand’s 48th and the fourth election under the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system.
• With special votes counted the Labour Party holds 50 seats – a plurality of the 121 Parliamentary seats.
• The National Party holds 48 seats, down one from the 2005 election night result, but up 21 on the 27 seats it held at the 2002 election.
• New Zealand First holds seven seats (previously 13 during the 2002 Parliament); the Green Party has six (nine); the Mäori Party has four (one); United Future New Zealand has three (eight); ACT New Zealand has two (nine); Jim Anderton’s Progressive has one (two).
• There are 30 new members of Parliament – 16 are electorate MPs and 14 are list MPs.
• Of 69 electorates, 31 each were won by the National and Labour Parties. Of the remaining seven, four were won by the Mäori Party, and one each by ACT New Zealand, Jim Anderton's Progressive, and United Future New Zealand.
• 15 electorate seats were won by parties that did not hold them during the 47th Parliament. The National Party gained 11 of these, the Mäori Party gained three, and ACT gained one.
• The electorate with the smallest winning margin in the 2005 election was Otaki, won by the Labour candidate with a margin of 382 electorate votes.
• There are 39 women in the 48th Parliament. Since the introduction of MMP, the representation of women in Parliament has reached record levels, achieving 32 percent in 2005.
• The number of MPs who identify as being of Mäori descent has tripled since the introduction of MMP. The 2005 Parliament has 21 such MPs, up from 19 at the start of the 2002 Parliament.
• Although the proportion of the New Zealand population that is of Pacific ethnicity is seven percent, and that of Asian ethnicity is nine percent, only two percent of MPs are of each of these ethnicities in the 2005 Parliament.
• Business, teaching, and farming are the three most common occupational backgrounds for MPs in recent Parliaments.
• Voter turnout reached 80.9 percent in 2005, a slight increase on the 2002 turnout of 77.0 percent.
• Voter turnout in New Zealand has averaged 86 percent between 1981 and 2005.
• MMP does not appear to have increased voter participation by those on the Mäori roll. About three quarters (76 percent) of those on the Mäori roll voted on average in FPP elections between 1981 and 1993. Just over two thirds (68 percent) of these electors voted on average in MMP elections between 1996 and 2005.