Five MPs who will serve communities across Tauranga and Western Bay of Plenty are in Wellington or heading there, as the wheels of Parliament slowly start to turn again.

Tauranga City’s Sam Uffindell, Bay of Plenty’s Tom Rutherford, Coromandel’s Scott Simpson and Rotorua’s Todd McClay – all National candidates elected on Saturday night’s results – will be at this morning’s caucus meeting, followed by a lunch to reunite, after being in their electorates for the campaign.

ACT List MP for the Bay of Plenty at large, Cameron Luxton, has already joined Tom in Wellington to start the induction process for new MPs.

Sam Uffindell, who spoke SunLive before heading to Wellington, says the plan is for all elected member of the National Party to assemble in Wellington for tomorrow morning’s caucus meeting “and for a caucus lunch to catch up with everyone after the election as everyone hasn’t seen everyone for a while as we’ve all been back in our electorates working hard [campaigning]”.

“I’ve never come in after a General Election – it was a by-election my first time,” says Sam, who is not sure on what to usually expect at the start of an election term, but says it “will be good to see everyone again and to welcome in a whole bunch of new faces as well”.

Newly-elected MP for BOP Tom Rutherford told SunLive he’s been busy today getting security tags, understanding what the arrangements are for MPs and how they work, how the parliamentary and electorate offices work “and just really getting greater understanding of the machine that is Parliament”.

Tom Rutherford is all smiles after the big win on October 14. Photo: Merle Cave/SunLive.

How does the 26-year-old feel? “It’s very surreal – this a huge privilege. I know I’ve got high expectations from the Bay of Plenty community for me to be a strong representative here – they’ve given me strong support to be here so I’m going to be working incredibly hard both here in wellington and locally in the BOP to ensure we can be the best place in NZ to live.”

ACT’s Cameron Luxton told SunLive the induction process is three weeks’ long, with some of the process done remotely online after this week.

“There’s a lot to learn and to understand. My feeling is one of gratefulness that people have put their trust in ACT to get us here to deliver on what we’ve been campaigning on.”

Asked what he’s aiming to achieve in the Beehive, Cameron says he first needs to wait until ACT has cemented a coalition agreement with National before going into that topic.

“We need to cement that agreement ...but we have got things we have campaigned on which we are sticking to, which we need to ensure we can get done.”

ACT's Cameron Luxton.

Sam and Tom will be joined Scott Simpson, who won the Coromandel electorate for the fifth consecutive term for the National Party.

He’s been snapped holding a ‘Thank you’ sign, acknowledging the Coromandel electorate and thanking them for the result.

The Coromandel electorate covers the Coromandel Peninsula, and stretches down into the Western Bay of Plenty district, encompassing Waihi Beach, Katikati, Omokoroa and Matakana Island.

Meanwhile, Todd McClay has retained his position as MP for Rotorua for the National Party for a sixth term with his electorate win on Saturday night, after taking the seat in 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2020.

The Rotorua electorate takes in both Rotorua and Te Puke, which is part of the Western Bay of Plenty district.

Todd McClay.

Todd was already hard at work yesterday – sitting around a table of the National Party’s top delegates at leader Christopher Luxon’s house in Auckland for a strategy meeting.

As such, Sam says the wider Bay of Plenty region has a “strong and united voice” heading to Parliament.

“You’ve got a strong and united voice. Tom and I are good friends and will work very closely. All are good a good bunch”

As of this morning, the Electoral Commission results show the National Party has won 875,234 votes – or 38.99 per cent – in Saturday’s General Election.

This equates to National having 50 seats in Parliament – so at this stage National will need form a coalition with ACT New Zealand – which won 11 seats in the election, and still possibly pull NZ First into the collation agreement if either National and/or ACT cannot secure another two seats by November 5, when all special votes will be counted.

Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell with his family on election night.