Greens gain extra seat, Nats lose one 

The official election results are out and have seen National lose a seat to the Greens.
 
The special votes have tipped the scale giving the Greens a party of nine and giving their ninth list candidate a job in parliament.

It was a blue wash two weeks ago and a red rinse for Labour as National swept to power on election night.

But Green candidate Kennedy Graham had to wait two weeks to find out he'll be walking the halls of parliament, scrapping in by just 0.3%.

"They said you are number nine, you are going to be the cliff-hanger. I don't think any of us realised we were going to take that to such a fine art. But it was two weeks of suspended animation," says Graham.

He had to wait for the special votes to be counted. They're the overseas votes or people who can't make it to the polling booth on election day. And those 270,965 votes have changed the make up of parliament.

"The National Party has lost one list seat compared to election night, and it's total number of seats will be 58. The Green Party have gained one list seat," says Robert Peden, Chief Electoral Officer.

National's Cam Calder loses his spot as the 59th National MP.

And former minister Harry Duynhoven didn't get a happy call. He narrowly lost to National in the seat of New Plymouth so remains out of parliament.

"All the candidates that were leading on election night have been confirmed as winning their constituency seats on election night," says Peden.

So National now has 58 seats, Labour stays the same on 43, the Greens go up to nine, Act have five, The Maori Party five, and Progressives and UnitedFuture have one seat each.

That takes the total seats to 122 - an overhang of two because the Maori Party won more electorate seats than was reflected in party vote support.

And in three weeks time we'll see those numbers turned into political power when parliament resumes.

The final turnout was 79% of enrolled electors compared to 81% in 2005.

Click here for the final results