Watch: New Green MPs, co-leaders speak at Parliament

The Green Party co-leaders say they are "absolutely stoked" to welcome the party's new MPs to Parliament.

The preliminary results of Election 2023 show the Green Party likely to win three electorate seats.

Chlöe Swarbrick, Julie Anne Genter and Tamatha Paul are all leading in their respective electorates, with only the special votes still to be counted.

The party vote also returns the Greens to 14 MPs total, equal to the record number it won in the 2011 and 2014 elections.

With some MPs retiring at the end of last term, its new list MPs include Steve Abel, Efeso Collins, Hūhana Lyndon, Lan Pham, Darleen Tana, and Scott Willis.

While special votes tend to favour the left, there have been suggestions this trend may not hold for this election - particularly with many of the early votes strongly leaning to the right. With the Greens having barely scraped their 14th MP in on the preliminary results, the special votes would need to heavily favour the party to bring in another.

Co-leader Marama Davidson said the party was "absolutely stoked" to welcome their new MPs to the 54th Parliament, "particularly with our staunch, heroic, warrior new MPs as well".

She said the party had a fantastic campaign and want to grow on it.

Asked if they would remain as co-leaders for the full term, Davidson said there were decisions to be made - with the party set to hold a leadership vote at its next annual meeting, in the middle of next year, as usual.

Co-leader James Shaw previously promised to remain in the leadership at least until the party was safely to the other side of being in government, and now said it "does depend on your definition of safe".

"We've got a big new caucus here and the primary focus right now it to make sure everyone gets their feet under the table, and that we're off to a really good start.

"We spent 20 years in opposition before we got into government, so it's not unfamiliar to us. At the same time this is the first time that we've ever moved from being in government to being back in opposition, and it's only the second time that we've ended up in a situation of having as many new MPs as we have returning MPs."

Asked about working with the new government, Davidson said: "We've always been quite clear that climate change is for all humans and all political parties [to deal with], preventing violence is for all communities and all political parties to do that mahi.

"I would hope that they can see us and all of our MPs who have expertise and experience and record to be able to draw off our connections, our knowledge and our skills to keep going in the progressive direction that things are going."

But Shaw said National Party leader Christopher Luxon was clear he would prefer to work with ACT, had ruled out working with the Greens "and he's followed through on that by not contacting us".

He noted the memorandum of understanding with former prime minister Sir John Key's government did not get started until about six months after the government was formed, and said the National Party needed to get on with stitching together "what is going to be a very awkward coalition in the meantime".

Asked for any advice for them in forming that coalition, Davidson said: "Thoughts and prayers."

With the significant Green wins in Wellington, Shaw hoped the incoming government would take note of that and consider the wants of Wellington as it looked at its transport plans.

He said the policy mix from National, ACT and NZ First would mean climate targets would be impossible to meet.

"For example ... how they meet the requirements on the one hand to meet our climate targets, and on the other hand increase the price of electric vehicles and decrease the price of twin-cab diesel utes. You can see how those things are inconsistent with each other."

New Green MPs speak

Wellington Central new MP Tamatha Paul said she was really grateful to Wellington.

Hūhana Lyndon said the priority for her in Te Tai Tōkerau was ensuring the Whangārei Hospital rebuild continued, with the potential for that to be stopped by the National-led government.

Efeso Collins said South Auckland had some big issues to tackle, and he believed many in the area chose not to vote because they were feeling a sense of hopelessness.

"We're going to have an extremely right-wing government, what we can do is get in and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our communities so they know that hope is coming."

Diversity in party

Shaw said the new line-up was "tremendously diverse" - on gender, sexuality, ethnicity, professional background, geographical spread - including New Zealand's first ever Vietnamese MP, four wāhine Māori and two Pasifika.

"We're really proud of that, there was a time when our caucus wasn't as diverse as this and when you've got 14 members of Parliament, it allows you to kind of have more spread there."

Davidson said it will be really important to work with Te Pāti Māori and Labour to uphold Te Tiriti justice aspirations, in "resisting the rubbish that was being spout by the anti-co-governance tour, the anti-Tiriti tour".

"What we are saying is that these sorts of divisive and mana-trampling conversations on Te Tiriti are absolutely about causing social unrest. We have seen that here and around the world. We don't want that to happen and the only way that can not happen is to stop using Māori as political footballs."