Phil Goff says he intends to serve the full term as the MP for Mt Roskill - regardless of whether he remains leader of the Labour Party.
The party is vowing to start rebuilding immediately after a poor election result on Saturday. It polled just 27%, making it the party's worst result to date under the MMP voting system.
[image:3913:half:right]Mr Goff is expected to announce his resignation as leader at Labour's caucus meeting on Tuesday, but told reporters on Sunday afternoon that he takes full responsibility for the result.
Though he is remaining coy about his future as leader, he is already referring to the role in the past tense: "This is the party that I believe in and it was - it's a - privilege to lead it."
He batted away questions about his leadership and the position of his deputy Annette King.
But asked if Labour had any promising up-and-coming leaders, Mr Goff said: "There's a caucus full of people with that potential. It would be unfair for me to name them and the list is too long."
Mr Goff won his seat with a majority of 6383 and says he still has a lot of passion for politics.
"We certainly bled support; we bled it to the Greens and to New Zealand First, ironically, on the very issues that we were fighting for. But Labour will come back - we've come back before and we'll come back again."
Mr Goff accepts that the National Party has a clear mandate to govern, but argues it does not have a specific mandate to partially sell state assets.
He says Labour fought the election hard on the issues it believes in and made some tough decisions in the long-term interests of New Zealand.
"Not all of those issues will have been popular, but the decisions we made were the right decisions - and history will be on our side."
Cunliffe, Parker front-runners
Labour MPs David Cunliffe and David Parker are widely considered the front-runners for Mr Goff's job and already the jostling for position has begun behind the scenes.
Mr Cunliffe retained the seat of New Lynn with a slightly increased majority and says the party needs to talk about its future direction in the wake of the election result.
"It's given us a lot to think about and reflect upon. There's obviously a message from the voters there and we're going to have to get together and think that through."
Mr Cunliffe would not talk about whether Phil Goff should step down, but says the issue of leadership needs to be discussed.
Labour's campaign spokesperson and Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson says the party will fight hard for the next three years to oppose National's asset sales plan and believes Phil Goff had a good campaign.
Listen to Grant Robertson
At least six MPs lose place
At least six Labour MPs have lost their place in Parliament as a result of the party's reduced share of the party vote.
In 2008, Labour had 21 electorate seats and 22 list seats. In this election, Labour has won 22 electorate seats and 12 list seats.
Labour MPs from the last term who will not make it back into Parliament from the party list are: Carol Beaumont, Kelvin Davis, Carmel Sepuloni, Rick Barker, Stuart Nash and Steve Chadwick.