Regardless of the final result, this election has been a disastrous performance by both Christophers. On election night neither National nor Labour received 30% of the party vote.

Labour has 15 list MPs only because it performed so poorly in the electorates.

Labour has paid the price for failing to replace Chris Hipkins.

National’s failure is even more extraordinary.

Christopher Luxon has been an exceptionally unpopular prime minister. A leader with self-knowledge would have recognised the reality and stepped aside.

Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop, Paul Goldsmith and Gerry Brownlee [no loss —Eds] are out of Parliament because they failed to persuade or force a change of leader.

It has been obvious all year that Luxon was leading National to a disastrous result for the party.

Who doubts that if Erica Stanford had been leading National, we would have elected a very different Parliament?

Richard Prebble CBE is a former NZ MP. Initially a member of the Labour Party, he joined the newly formed ACT New Zealand party under Roger Douglas in 1996, becoming its leader from 1996 to 2004. This article was sourced here