New Zealand Election Count Under Way: National 30.5%, Labour 29% With 17% Counted; Opportunity Could Be Kingmaker

Six weeks of campaigning, politicking and debates are done. New Zealand has voted, and the count is now under way in what is being cast as one of the tightest elections in recent memory.

For weeks, the polls have shown no clear path to government for any potential coalition, left or right.

The polls have tracked voters turning to the smaller parties, seemingly unimpressed by National and Labour — such as the centrist Opportunity party.

Tonight could see Opportunity potentially end up as kingmaker, if that pre-election support and hype has translated into votes.

With 17% of the vote counted, the numbers show National on 30.5%, Labour 29%, the Greens 13%, Act 11.1%, NZ First 9.8%, Opportunity 5.4% and Te Pāti Māori 0.5%.

Some of the Labour party candidates are locked in neck-and-neck races. With more than 20% of the vote counted, Labour's Ginny Anderson has edged just ahead of the incumbent, National MP Chris Bishop, by just a handful of ballots in Hutt South.

In Wellington North, Green MP Julie-Anne Genter is just holding off Labour challenger Craig Renney.

In Wairarapa, Labour's Kieran McAnulty is winning against National's Mike Butterick.

Elsewhere in Wellington, Labour party MP Ayesha Verrall was hoping to win Wellington North off the incumbent Green MP Tamatha Paul, but early votes suggest this will not be the case.

Paul is leading comfortably in that seat, at almost twice Verrall's count, in an electorate where the Greens are also leading the party vote.

Another key feature of this election has been the possibility of an overhang — where a party wins more electorates than its share of the party vote.

If that occurs, more seats will be added to parliament to make up the difference, and that could dictate which coalition can form a government.

Te Pāti Māori (the Māori party) has been calling on supporters to engineer an overhang for its party — by voting for its candidates in the Māori seats, and not giving them a party vote. This could benefit the left bloc.

Meanwhile, if National holds on to a good portion of its seats but its party vote falls short, that will give the party an edge to form a government but could see some of its most prominent MPs out of parliament.

The race between Act leader David Seymour and National's Paul Goldsmith in the Epsom seat is narrow — a matter of a few dozen votes.

National supporters chanted 'Goldsmith, Goldsmith' when the results appeared on two giant screens flanking the podium at the Viaduct Events Centre.

Attention is also on New Zealand's bellwether seat, where locals are watching a knife-edge poll. Overall, the polls show no coalition is expected to secure a majority of seats.

More results are coming in as the count advances. Over the next few hours it will become clear who is on course to form a government in one of the closest elections in recent history.