Melissa Lee.
But there are lessons to learn from the event, and particularly from the approach by the various contesting parties to how such rare occasions should be handled.
There was something entirely false about the by-election from the very beginning, when the candidates were "selected", since, as a very safe Labour seat, the parties of significance decided to use it for other purposes.
Labour used it to ensure one of its brightest, David Shearer, gained an electorate seat from which - who knows? - he may be able to build as successful a political career as his predecessor.
National chose a candidate with Asian ethnicity in Melissa Lee, who was already a list MP, a cynical or pragmatic choice, depending on your point of view, since Ms Lee had no chance of winning.
The Green Party put up its co-leader, Russel Norman, in order to raise his infinitesimal public profile.
There were a few local issues, as is usually the case with by-elections, and in Mt Albert these were a motorway connection (should it be above or below ground?) and the so-called Auckland super-city scheme.
The first was the most immediately controversial.
The Clark government had actually proposed the link, favouring the tunnel scheme, but Mr Shearer campaigned against a motorway through Mt Albert.
Both he and Dr Norman tried to use the by-election as a referendum against it.
Ms Lee favoured a motorway above the ground but was left stranded when her Government colleagues - heedless of any impact in a by-election they had already written off - produced a lower-cost compromise involving an under- and above-ground link, and announced it without first telling her.
The second issue - the super-city scheme - was actually a test of what the political future might mean.
National, Labour and the Greens were all playing a longer game in Mt Albert, a by-election of absolutely no national significance.
The electorate's demographic is highly unusual but may not be so unusual in three, six, nine or 12 years' time in this country, and it presents new challenges in representation which will be reflected in many other Auckland seats.
That challenge will be intensified as the super-city scheme gathers momentum towards the local body elections next year.
Nearly 25% are Asian, a sixth Pacific Islanders, and some 20.4% of the electorate are aged between 20 and 29, few of whom would have been born when Helen Clark entered politics, let alone won her first parliamentary seat.
This is not an electorate representative of the past, perhaps even the present, but it certainly represents the future.
It is a melting pot of cultures, ideas, political preferences, and with Miss Clark removed from the frame, Labour can no longer rely on a sentimental vote.
The result last Saturday was largely meaningless in an immediate sense.
A mere 48% of registered voters bothered to cast a ballot, hardly a great result for either Labour or National, but also hardly a surprise.
Mr Shearer recorded 12,613 votes, giving him a majority at 9187 - very close to Miss Clark's 10,351; Ms Lee received 3426, a fall of 12 percentage points in National's vote share; Dr Norman 2418, and Act New Zealand's John Boscawen 943.
Mr Shearer did not make the campaign a personal one; Ms Lee made many gaffes and was effectively abandoned by senior party members, Dr Norman pushed his own profile and nearly doubled the Green Party's share of the electorate vote, and Mr Boscawen attacked Ms Lee.
The result suggested where voter sentiment with the campaigning tactics lay: the centre-left vote was 15,031 compared with the centre-right vote of 4369.
For the longer term, however, the by-election produced several lessons.
Labour learned that it can still win a local campaign and win it well; it was notable the number of activists helping out, including party leader Phil Goff.
National's campaign, in contrast, was appallingly judged.
Loyalty to the candidate counted for nothing, with the notable absence of campaigning support for Ms Lee from senior members and officials.
National could draw no reliance for its complacent expectations that the Asian vote is reliably conservative.
The Government learned that local issues do actually have political meaning, that substance matters over style.
The Greens learned that closing the gap between it and Labour is going to be much harder than expected.
As a referendum on the Government's performance to date, the by-election was meaningless; but as a pointer to the need for focused political management it was a useful tutorial for those prepared to heed it.
