News of Labour’s defeat has spread across the world, and headlines about Aotearoa New Zealand’s swing to the right are coming to light overseas, as political analysts look into what happened to make the country turn blue. 

With special votes yet to come in, it is clear that former Air New Zealand CEO Christopher Luxon will become the 42nd Prime Minister of New Zealand - although it looks likely that he will need both Act and NZ First to form a government. 

Current Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said in his concession speech last night that he had called Luxon to congratulate him. 

A ‘political bloodbath’ in New Zealand - News.com.au 

Across the Tasman, News Corp’s News.com.au has called it a “political bloodbath” and said the “Ardern era is over. 

“Saturday’s election is being seen as a return to normal programming after three years of majority Labour government”, NCA Newswire in Australia wrote, citing PhD candidate in New Zealand studies at ANU’s Department of Pacific Affairs Jayden Evett. 

“The whole idea of the system was to make sure that New Zealand didn’t return majority governments again … the system’s not meant to,” Evett told NCA Newswire. 

“The fact that it did really showed New Zealanders were interested in voting in a particular way at that current time.” 

Evett added that typically New Zealanders don’t “elect oppositions, we vote out governments”. 

NZ ‘resoundingly chooses’ conservative government - Daily Telegraph UK 

The Daily Telegraph in the UK wrote that New Zealand “resoundingly chose” a conservative government over Labour, and called the result “a dramatic contrast to Labour’s landslide victory under Jacinda Ardern in 2020″. 

Like News.com.au, the Telegraph also mentions Jacinda Ardern in its analysis of what went wrong for Labour, writing that “many New Zealanders also had not forgiven Ms Ardern for how she handled the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“Policies like barring overseas New Zealanders from returning home, enforcing harsh lockdowns, mandating the vaccine and refusing to face up to mandate protesters camped outside parliament all contributed to her declining popularity before her resignation,” the Daily Telegraph wrote. 

Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins at Rātana Pa Marae earlier this year. Photo / Mark Mitchell 

“While her policies helped New Zealand maintain its impressively low death rate, the country’s High Court went on to deem some of the government’s pandemic policies as “unjustifiable” in a functioning democracy,” it continued. 

“The agriculture industry had it particularly tough under Labour’s six years in power. It weathered an onslaught of green initiatives that were cricised by farmers and opposition parties as unnecessary at best, and harmful to the country at worst.” 

‘Most conservative government in decades’ - NY Times 

The New York Times also pointed to Ardern’s Covid-19 measures as the main factor in National Party’s victory last night. 

“The rightward shift came as voters punished the party once led by Jacinda Ardern for failing to deliver the transformational change that it had promised,” the US newspaper wrote. 

“For many voters, Ms. Ardern and her successor, Chris Hipkins, failed to deliver on the Labour Party’s promise of transformational change. In the weeks leading up to the election, New Zealanders, buffeted by the currents of global inflation and its larger Asia Pacific neighbours’ economic woes, overwhelmingly cited cost of living as the primary concern driving their vote.” 

Quoting Craig Renney, an economist for the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, the NY Times points out New Zealand’s recent struggle with climate change and the devastation left by Cyclone Gabrielle. 

National leader Christopher Luxon at the party HQ in Auckland on election night. Photo / Dean Purcell 

Renney told the NY Times that the National Party, about to form a new government in New Zealand, had not announced any plans for how it would manage New Zealand’s climate vulnerabilities. 

“Where are we going to be in six years’ time? What are we going to do to tackle some of the really big issues, be it climate change, renting, employment security?” he said. “Those things haven’t been being debated, because the country is tired.” 

New Zealand swings right in post-Ardern era - Financial Times 

The Financial Times said Labour suffered a “humbling defeat” and said that “the swing to the right, just three years after ‘Jacindamania’ swept the country, exposed the fragility of a policy agenda that concentrated on issues such as climate change once rising inflation and a cost of living crisis confronted New Zealand voters”. 

“Swings to the left and right, but always away from Labour” - ABC 

“It was a huge night of change in New Zealand with the National Party defeating Labour and sending first-term MP Christopher Luxon to the prime minister’s office,” Emily Clark wrote for the ABC in Australia. 

“As Australia recorded a resounding No vote and denied Indigenous people a Voice to Parliament, New Zealand saw a meaningful swing toward The Maori Party in its national election,” Clark wrote. 

“New Zealand has guaranteed representation of its Indigenous people in parliament, and before yesterday’s vote, six of the seven seats reserved for Maori members were held by Labour.” 

‘A shock for Labour’ - BBC 

“The result is a shock for Labour, who under Ms Ardern secured an outright majority in government in 2020 - unheard of under New Zealand’s hybrid form of proportional representation,” the BBC in the UK wrote about the NZ election. 

The report mentions that “many New Zealanders [were] dissatisfied over surging prices and the country’s long Covid lockdown”.