The morning after the night before - Look, Look there goes a cow edition

It's all over for another three years, the country has decided. And I have done my bit, ticked my boxes for what that was worth - not much.

I watched the breathless coverage on TV One. It was the best show in town. They had reporters stationed outside John Key's house. A talking head in the studio was expounding on whatever when he was cut short by the MC "have to cut you off there, we are going to (insert whoever the reporter was's name) at John Key's house now".

And to John Key's house we vicariously went. The pizzas had arrived and the man on the spot told us all about it along with images of the pizza mans back and John Key answering the door. This significant development reported and it was back to the talking heads in the studio.

They also had a reporter outside of Phil Goff's house which you couldn't see. This was a gig of great hardship, we were told, since Phil Goff lives on a hobby farm forty whole kilometers from Auckland. Way way out in the boonies where cell phone coverage is spotty.

In an early report filed before the sun went down a cow ambled past in the background as the man on the spot spouted forth - this was duly noted by the MC in the studio - evidence no doubt about how far off the beaten track this poor reporter had gone to give us the gen on what Phil Goff was doing this election night.

There was great excitement in the studio over some key electorates. Auckland central was one. This was the so called "battle of the babes" being as the candidates contestants were two mildly attractive young women. I say young and young they seem but my mother had had five children by the time she was their age. In any case their back story and life experience this pair are essentially interchangeable - the only real difference is that one is on the red team, the other is on the blue. And regardless of who actually took out the seat both will be MPs in the next parliament. Being as their electorate is not way out in the boonies both were readily accessible by the TV One team and both appeared as studio guests during the course of the evening. The blue team's lady won, by just 543 votes.

An electorate that didn't get much mention was the West Coast - that is a bit further away from Auckland than forty kilometers and really tricky to get too. But interestingly enough in a night which saw Labour crushed this seat changed hands from National to Labour bucked the trend as it were. It would seem the winning candidate was a good fit with the West Coast voters even if he is not a good fit with the modern Labour Party.

The West Coast is where the Labour Party was born of course - you have to wonder what the founding fathers of that party, rugged miners working in conditions that would have modern day OSH inspectors reaching for their smelling salts, would make of their heirs - the leader on his hobby farm, the ultimate in 21^st century urban upper middle class aspiration or Jacinda Arden, the red lady from Auckland central.

Another strange result that the Auckland Punditry seem to have missed is Dunedin South, a seat that would vote for Mickey Mouse if he were the Labour candidate. And they did return Clare Curran as expected but the party vote in that seat went to National which is odd, very odd. And cynical old me wonders if National had stood a credible local candidate instead of importing a paint by numbers identity politics potential list MP to contest that seat what might have happened.

But that's MMP for you - a really weird system that saw Labour and Green supporters in Epsom voting for the National candidate while National supporters in the same electorate voted for the Act candidate in order that the best man as they see it win.