The first list spot in Parliament will likely be taken by deputy leader Nicola Willis, who is also not running for an electorate.<\/p>\n
Under National\u2019s constitution, the first two positions on the party list are given to the leader and deputy leader. <\/p>\n
As leader Christopher Luxon will likely retain his safe seat of Botany, Willis would be the first MP needing the list to enter Parliament.<\/p>\n
Previous analysis by National pollster David Farrar found that, based on poll results at the time, the party would only get two list positions.<\/a><\/p>\n That analysis, which had National receiving 38 seats in Parliament overall, considered the change in party vote but not the particular quirks of individual electorate races. <\/p>\n National\u2019s support has fallen since the past election, with a Taxpayers\u2019 Union-Curia poll out on Friday having the party at 31%<\/a>, compared with 38.1% three years ago. On those poll results, it would get 40 seats. <\/p>\n As the Herald wrote in June after the party\u2019s conference<\/a>, a sitting National Speaker has in recent past elections been given the third spot on the list. However, Brownlee, the current Speaker, said at the time he had no expectation of being given that spot. <\/p>\n The list announcement comes after a difficult week for Luxon. <\/p>\n On Monday, he apologised for comments he made about businesses<\/a> in Rotorua. He faced pressure over a lack of action taken over comments his coalition partner<\/a> Winston Peters made about a Green MP. It was revealed he took a Defence Force plane home from a National<\/a> fundraiser. And on Thursday, he surprised colleagues by expressing a desire for a referendum on MMP<\/a> next term.<\/p>\n Peters was among the strongest critics of Luxon proposing an MMP referendum, accusing the National leader of a desperate \u201cpower grab\u201d informed by poor polling. <\/p>\n The NZ First leader this morning challenged Luxon to support the party\u2019s policy to hold a referendum on the seven M\u0101ori seats. <\/p>\n \u201cIf National think it\u2019s a good idea to hold a referendum to \u2018check-in on democracy\u2019, why doesn\u2019t National support NZ First\u2019s legislation to \u2018check-in on democracy\u2019 by having a referendum on the continued existence of the M\u0101ori seats now that so many M\u0101ori are in Parliament without them?\u201d<\/p>\n In February when NZ First announced it would campaign on a referendum, Luxon said it hadn\u2019t been discussed by his caucus and acknowledged the M\u0101ori seats had been a feature of the political system for some time. <\/p>\n National has indicated it would contest some of the seven M\u0101ori seats. It has confirmed Coral Raukawa as the party\u2019s candidate in the lower North Island seat of Te Tai Hau\u0101uru, currently held by Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.<\/p>\n Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald\u2019s chief political reporter, based in the press gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist in 2025 for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first list spot in Parliament will likely be taken by deputy leader Nicola Willis, who is also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,74,45621,21323,9084,5903,28167,11946,10005,16427,2720,3556,111,43,139,12885,69,24637,4762,6729,28228,275735,2887,21501,7248,1361,61,1865,1533,6728],"class_list":["post-562219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-2246","tag-after","tag-announcing","tag-candidates","tag-challenges","tag-election","tag-enters","tag-influence","tag-list","tag-luxon","tag-mori","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-november","tag-nz","tag-parliament","tag-party","tag-peters","tag-ranking","tag-referendum","tag-release","tag-reveal","tag-seat","tag-that","tag-to","tag-today","tag-will","tag-winston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}