KEY POINTS:
Kingmaker they may not be, but the Maori Party has emerged in a stronger position than they were after the 2005 election and has hopes of a voice in the National government.
National Party leader John Key has already talked with Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia and they are expected to meet early in the week. Neither would be drawn on what sort of involvement the Maori Party might have in a new government.
Turia was disappointed not to win all the Maori seats but pleased two Maori Party MPs had wins against sitting MPs. She said the media message that a vote for the Maori Party was wasted may have cost seats.
"We can be really proud that we are on the way up, there is one more election to go and we'll have those seven seats," she said.
The Maori Party has added one seat to the four it held in the last parliament. Rahui Katene narrowly led Labour's Mahara Okeroa with more than 90 per cent counted.
But Labour's Parekura Horomia staved off the challenge of Derek Fox in Ikaroa-Rawhiti, and Nanaia Mahuta beat Angeline Greensill in Hauraki-Waikato.
Party co-leader Pita Sharples and party president Whatarangi Winiata said they hoped National would seek their party's help to try to build a broad-based governing coalition.
Today, key players will meet to decide what, if any, support they can offer National. If Key is willing to do some deals, Maori Party MPs will present the options to hui around the country for feedback. The first hui will probably be held by Thursday.
"We've tried to be constructive the whole time we've been in Parliament and we will continue to be. There will be some things we can agree on, and other things we can't, " said co-leader Tariana Turia.
She was pleased about the party's Te Tai Tonga win. New MP Rahui Katene stepped in when the original candidate died suddenly this year, giving up her lawyer job to campaign.
Turia was not disappointed the party was not kingmaker? "We've never said we were going for the balance of power. We wanted to win the seven seats. That was our goal, but we haven't. We're a young party, we gained another seat and we'll continue striving to win the other two."
High on the policy wish-list is an audit of the money spent on Maori by every government department. The Maori spend would then be "unbundled" and redirected where it was most effective.
A major sticking point with National is the Maori seats. National wants to scrap them after 2014. The Maori Party wants them entrenched in law. Sharples said entrenchment of the Maori seats, repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act and writing the Treaty of Waitangi into the constitutional would be priorities, but they did not expect to gain any of them immediately.
But Dr Danny Keenan, a Maori politics expert at Victoria University, said the Maori seats were crucial to the party. With a party vote of under 3 per cent, the party needed the electoral support of Maori roll voters to stay in Parliament.
Helen Clark told the Herald on Sunday: "They will be very mindful of the expectations of their constituency. Overwhelmingly Maori are saying that they want a Labour-led Government."
