Former Prime Minister Helen Clark's three-term government introduced a raft of social progressive social policy - anti-smacking legislation, Working for Families, civil unions, Closing the Gap.
Voters now want to do more for themselves - tax cuts into their pockets better than government thinking for them.
Miss Clark was a great prime minister, strong, decisive, implacable and unwavering.
She and Michael Cullen were mercurial.
Voters want more of the ordinary - the John Key touch.
Boyish, an acceptance speech that was gushing, sometimes awkward, vulnerable, capable, and a determined match for Dr Cullen and Miss Clark, he communicates in ordinary ways.
Mr Key is also inclusive.
He has read the face of new millennium politics more than any leader since Norm Kirk.
This is the most culturally diverse Parliament ever - 28 Maori, Pasifika, Asian and Indian subcontinent MPs - 23% of Parliament now, perhaps 50% by 2025.
There were casualties.
Once with National, then with Labour - lots of Maori MPs but anti-Asian, enigmatic New Zealand First - Winston Peters, Ron Mark and Pita Paraone all gone.
Mr Peters can feel aggrieved.
Both the Serious Fraud Office and police had cleared him - the latter news arriving too late to be of use.
But for one long week in politics we could have had a fourth Labour government.
We're probably better for it.
New Zealand needs change, the economy an adjustment to the right.
There is a more mature, sensible and sophisticated feel to Maori representation, better cross-spectrum balance - seven to the right in National, six in Labour and one Greenie conscience to the left, five Maori Party nationalists in the centre, none in Act - thank the gods.
There are new stars.
Labour's Kelvin Davis is pragmatic, National's Hekia Parata stellar.
Te Tai Tonga has upgraded from Mahara Okeroa to Rahui Katene, while Tauranga has replaced Mr Peters with part-time Maori Simon Bridges - a future talent if he connects with his brown side.
The Maori Party will be disappointed it didn't clean sweep the seven Maori seats.
It did add the taonga of Te Tai Tonga.
Labour fought a canny Maori campaign using a raft of treaty settlements, including $100 million to Nanaia Mahuta's Tainui for the Waikato River and a $90 million deal with Parekura Horomia's East Coast Ngati Porou two days before voting.
Ms Mahuta's associate ministerial elevation assisted.
Not that she and Mr Horomia needed seats: both were high on the party list, but this was a matter of mana - they stand on iwi endorsement.
Maori voting patterns are important here.
Older Maori voted Labour, younger Maori voted Maori Party, older tribal leaderships prefer tribal MPs not pan-Maori ones.
There was little the Maori Party could do in response.
The early pitch for 10% of the party vote fell flat.
They could have made more of two-for-one - seats to the Maori Party and party vote to Labour because all their Maori MPs were in the top 40 except Okeroa.
Angeline Greensill did so fairly effectively in Tainui but there wasn't enough of a nationwide push.
Derek Fox suffered an unfair and at times deliberate campaign about ancient domestic violence.
His spat with former partner Atareta Poananga was equally unhelpful.
Maori dislike public relationship baggage.
There is also a sense that Ms Greensill and Te Tai Tonga candidate Rahui Katene were not entirely up to the campaign.
Ms Katene is talented but appeared uncomfortable and like her predecessor didn't fully connect with the South Island.
The Maori Party non-aligned stance may also have lost votes, especially with strong overtures from Labour toward the end, although the latter may also have backfired with Pakeha.
But declaring for Labour may have undermined the negotiating position they now find themselves in.
It is good that Mr Key, Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples are talking based on good faith, not balance of power.
It would be anti-democratic for a 2% overall support party to decide government.
The 1996 New Zealand First debacle reminds of that.
With Labour's demise, the Maori Party is free to negotiate with National in the interest of Maori and so it should.
The independent Maori voice it claims to be is only truly such if the party is willing to work with all Pakeha - Right or Left.
Most Maori will accept the reality despite having given most party votes to Labour.
Many will remember the sins of 1980's Labour governments and that the first major treaty settlements were led by National.
This is the politics of the new millennium, that the Barack Obama win represents.
We also need them to balance off mad Act.
There are risks.
Labour will certainly hammer them on unfavourable polices and there will be an inevitable reckoning between right-wing economic policy and the building of brown prosperity.
There is also Mr Key.
He's had no trouble acknowledging Maori as the indigenous tangata whenua - something that has stuck in the throats of Labourites such as Trevor Mallard.
He's also spent more time with Maori than any National leader, and more than Phil Goff and Annette King combined.
On other levels, he can come across as patronising, such as telling Tame Iti's son he might be more successful than dad when many Maori see Tame as a success.
Most commentators suggest one associate ministership.
I suspect at least three, somewhere in Maori Affairs, welfare, health and/or education.
Mr Key may not need them to govern but he will want them for what they and he symbolise.
Look for team-ups with Maori in National.
Tau Henare will lead on Maori Affairs possibly with Te Ururoa Flavell alongside.
Dr Sharples in education and Ms Turia in health and/or welfare would also work alongside Georgina Te Heuheu.
The main issue is where to put hard man Hone Harawira - broadcasting, treaty settlements, maybe defence? Something with established momentum.
The Maori Party has not won all seven seats this time around.
The future remains theirs.
There is a new generation of Maori rising that is far more politically aware than anything previous.
Their mantra is tino-rangtiratanga, Maori and the Maori Party.
They are not of voting age yet but will come on line over the next two elections.
Youth is where the Maori Party must invest its time and energy.
- Dr Taonui is head of the School of Maori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Canterbury.
