Labour looks like contemporary New Zealand, National still male and pale

Jacinda Ardern has a diverse caucus that includes a large number of Maori and women MPs, such as Nanaia Mahuta. Photo / File

The new Labour Party caucus is far more representative of contemporary New Zealand than National, says a Massey University sociologist.

Professor Paul Spoonley says there is a striking difference between Labour and the Greens to National and Act in terms of diversity.

More than half of Labour's 64 MPs are women, it has 15 Maori MPs, one in six MPs is Pasifika and it has a good mix of other ethnicities.

The Greens' caucus of 10 includes three Maori MPs, seven women, Iranian refugee Golriz Ghaharaman and Latin American Ricardo Menendez.

National has just two Maori MPs - Simon Bridges and Shane Reti - in a caucus of 35, one Asian MP in Melissa Lee and 11 women. Otherwise, it is mostly made up of European males. The party has no Pasifika MPs.

National's Parmjeet Parmar was a victim of National's poor result. Photo / Doug Sherring

National did, however, lose some diversity in its ranks with MPs Kanwalijt Singh Bakshi, Parmjeet Parmar, Alfred Ngaro and Harete Hipango losing their seats.

Act's 10-strong caucus has three Maori MPs - David Seymour, Nicole McKee and Karen Chhour - and four women - Brooke van Velden, McKee, Chhour and Toni Severin.

Spoonley, an expert on the changing face of New Zealand society, said National leader Judith Collins made it clear early on that ethnicity and cultural differences were not central to the party in this election.

He said 27 per cent of New Zealanders are migrants, and 50 per cent are migrants or children of migrants.

Since 2013, Spoonley said New Zealand has experienced its highest level of net migration and gained 330,000 people. The two largest groups come from China and India. Within the next decade "one if five of us might be Asian".

New Green MP Ricardo Menendez is Latin American. Photo / File

Spoonley said the Labour caucus does reflect the diversity of contemporary New Zealand - with one proviso.

"It probably could be better in terms of the Chinese and Indian communities - two very large communities," he said.

With the resignation of Raymond Huo, Labour has just one Chinese MP with Naisi Chen, two Indian MPs - Priyanca Radhakrishnan and Gaurav Sharma - and Sri Lankan MP Vanushi Walters.

Other ethnic MPs in the Labour caucus include Eritrea refugee Ibrahim Omer and Ayesha Verrall with links to the Maldives.

Spoonley said it would be interesting to do polling to see how large ethnic communities, like the Chinese and Indians, voted and whether they block voted.

National Party MP Melissa Lee. Photo / File

The Electoral Commission has estimated the voter turnout at 82.5 per cent, the highest turnout since 1999 if confirmed.

By Sunday morning, almost 2.4 million votes in NZ's general election had been counted.

Labour has 49.1 per cent of the vote and National 26.8 per cent. The Greens have 7.6 per cent of the vote, while Act is on 8 per cent. New Zealand First is well short of the threshold, at 2.7 per cent.

About 480,000 special declaration votes are still be counted - representing about 17 per cent of total votes.

Almost 70 per cent of votes were cast in advance - up from 47 per cent in 2017.