Out with the old, in with the new: Parliament begins quiet transition

Parliament is in a state of quiet transition as exiting MPs start packing up their offices and new ones take their place.With final results not expected until the last Friday of the month, negotiations to form the next government remain largely on hold.Stations with cardboard boxes and rolls of packing tape have been placed in strategic locations, with signs advising bubble wrap is available on request.The 35 new MPs voted in on Saturday began arriving for inductions at Parliament on Monday, with one telling RNZ it was the best induction he'd ever done.On Tuesday, parties including Labour, National, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori would bring all their MPs together for their first caucus meetings - ACT had its on Sunday.Labour leader Chris Hipkins on Monday paid tribute to departing MPs, including Labour's Rachel Boyack ("a great local MP"), Deborah Russell ("I want to thank her for her service as well") and Dan Rosewarne ("only recently rejoined ... a fantastic person to campaign alongside").Labour leader Chris Hipkins.RNZ / Mark PapaliiNational frontbenchers - ejected by the party's overhang preventing it from having any list seats - also got a shoutout."It's a heck of a way to leave Parliament," Hipkins said."To Nicola Willis, being minister of finance is a bloody hard job at any government, and to leave Parliament in that way will be I'm sure a pretty tough thing for her ... she'll be looking forward to spending a bit more time with her children, that's probably about the only upside."To Chris Bishop - my next-door neighbouring MP until Saturday night - while he's been an opponent, we've had a constructive working relationship as local MPs, I've worked with him across the House in our Leader of the House roles."Paul Goldsmith, I haven't actually worked as much with, but again, acknowledge for him it's pretty tough."But he particularly singled out departing Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee."I've worked closely with Gerry for pretty much the entire time I've been a Member of Parliament, he has been good fun as a colleague. We've been fierce opponents at various points, but I've always had a constructive working relationship with him."He is a man of his word, so whenever I've done deals with Gerry ... I've always known that he would stick to his word."Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee.VNP / Phil SmithIn particular, he highlighted Brownlee's work in the Key government after the Canterbury earthquakes, saying it was an "impossible" job."After those kind of disasters, nothing that you can do is ever going to keep everybody happy, there are always going to be people who are badly traumatised and badly hurt."A lot of those decisions that he took during that time were quite courageous, and ... the fact that he was willing to take some of those bold decisions that upset a lot of people at the time actually positioned Christchurch very well for that rebuild."He said it was "a bit rough" that after his long career in politics Brownlee would be leaving Parliament without a chance to say goodbye with a valedictory speech. RNZ has sought comment from the Parliamentary Service on whether any special arrangement can be made to allow him to do so."Being Speaker is a really tough gig, and we've probably given him a bit of a hard time in that job, but I think he's taken that with good humour."Hipkins confirmed too, that with Brownlee's departure he would be the longest continuously serving male MP, bare minutes ahead of Phil Twyford "because of the alphabet".National leader Christopher Luxon on election night.Nathan MckinnonNational's leader Christopher Luxon had spoken about the loss of those MPs in his election night speech and statements on Sunday, thanking Willis "for your dedication, for your determination and for your years of service to this great country of ours" before also thanking Goldsmith and Brownlee, as well as Nancy Lu and Vanessa Weenink.The loss was "really gutting for them personally, for their families, for their teams and their supporters, and also their staff"."I do take responsibility ... I feel keenly, I mean, these are my friends," he said. "These are friends of mine, personal friends of mine, and we have been through a lot together over the last five years. It's been tough. It's been hard. It's been you know difficult, and so we have been in the trenches together."He explained his initial comments had left out Bishop because of the closeness of the result, saying he had not wanted to concede the race on Bishop's behalf."Chris Bishop has been an outstanding outstanding minister. He's going to be a big loss to our team, but also I think a big loss to Parliament. And I think his enduring legacy of RMA reform is something that we should all be very grateful and respectful of."