Elected officials have spoken of their limbo working period whilst the incoming Government continue its coalition talks and criticised the time it's taken to count the special votes. 

Megan Woods, elected Labour MP for Wigram said the previous week had been primarily based around her electorate - meeting with various community groups and supporting her constituents. 

"People think MPs really sit around doing nothing and I think that's something the public likes to imagine," Woods told The Mike Hosking Breakfast. 

"But often there's a lot of meeting with groups."

Incoming National MP for Whangaparaoa, Mark Mitchell echoed the same sentiment, telling Hosking he'd been handling affairs back in his local electorate. 

"I just think waiting three weeks for these special votes has to be done a lot more quickly because Chris [Luxon] wants a Government formed and wants to get onto work," he said. 

The country is in week two of three counting the special votes and the final election result will be released in nine days, giving the final makeup of Parliament. 

National and ACT can govern alone on current numbers, but those may change once November 3rd comes around. 

Woods said there was little need for the special votes to take three weeks to count. 

"I don't understand the mechanics of how it takes so long to count the votes, that's something that someone probably needs to look at," she said. 

The Wigram leader said the political environment wasn't a "first-past-the-post" one, where parliament could wait for three weeks and then get straight into governing. 

"There could well be coalition negotiations, which take however long they take, it can mean quite a period of time.

Mitchell said there will be a review done by the Justice Select Committee on the election into potential mistakes made when it comes to the election process. 

"I think the leaders and electoral commission will have to front up to what's gone wrong because there have been some issues without a doubt," said Mitchell. 

"And I agree with Megan [Woods] completely - I don't see why we need an extra week to count the specials, to get the Government formed before Christmas and get things underway."

Prime Minister-elect, Christopher Luxon also spoke of his wish - and, he believed, New Zealand’s wish - that coalition talks would be completed by the time the special votes had been counted. 

Luxon believed three weeks was too long for special votes to be counted. “This is the reality of our system.” 

He said it used to be two weeks but an extra week had been added for those who enrolled on election day - he preferred it would be two weeks.