The National Party caucus will soon decide whether to keep Judith Collins and Gerry Brownlee as their leadership team once special votes have been confirmed.
It comes after National suffered a heavy election defeat to Labour. The party, which held 56 seats after the 2017 election, now has just 35 and has had to farewell many caucus members.
The Electoral Commission is yet to announce special votes - that's people who enrolled on election day and those who cast their ballots from overseas. Once the votes are announced next Friday, National's caucus will decide on the leadership.
"There's always something on that for both leader and deputy... it's always confirmed as part of our rules following the final special votes being counted," Collins told reporters on Wednesday.
Both Collins and Brownlee have admitted to making blunders during the election campaign and an internal review is being launched to investigate what went so wrong.
National MPs were already leaking against Collins on their first day back at Parliament last week, with one telling Newshub's political editor Tova O'Brien it's "highly unlikely" she will lead the party into 2023.
Other National MPs have told Newshub they back Collins and want the leakers to front-up so the party can start to rebuild again.
As for Brownlee, Collins said his position as deputy leader is up to the caucus.
"I'm very happy to have the decision made by the caucus and I'm very happy to have Gerry as our deputy. He has been a great stalwart and he is a great stalwart," Collins said, when asked if Brownlee should stay on as deputy.
"That's a matter for the caucus."
Brownlee said he hasn't had any National MPs express concern about him staying on as deputy but he hasn't been calling around to ensure he has their support either.
"I want what's best for the National Party. I've been a deputy before. I've stepped aside before. Whatever's best for our caucus moving forward is what I will obviously want to facilitate," he said.
Brownlee pushed back on the suggestion he's not fighting for the role.
"I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of how our caucus works," he said. "Our caucus is going to have a discussion. If that's what the caucus decides then I'll accept that."
Collins became National's leader on July 14 following a shock resignation from Todd Muller, who only lasted 53 days after rolling Simon Bridges who took over from Bill English and held the leadership between 2018 and 2020.
She took on the role 13 weeks from the election and was hit with internal problems such as Andrew Falloon's scandal, botched budget numbers, and MPs leaking against her.
Collins recently likened her task taking over as leader as a "hospital pass" - but Brownlee said it was anything but working for her.
"It was certainly no hospital pass being Judith's deputy but it wasn't a great year for us - everyone knows that."
National MP Paul Goldsmith's finance portfolio could also be on the line.
"We are going to be very careful in doing this allocation of portfolios that I listen to everybody in that team and I'm not making any announcements on anybody before I'm ready to do so," Collins said when asked if he'd keep his role.
Collins confirmed Goldsmith in the finance role as soon as she became leader and was asked why she couldn't do the same again.
"I'm not in the same situation, am I? I'm currently waiting for the last of the special votes to be counted and allocated and the Parliament isn't sitting so there's no need for me to rush out and do anything," she said.
"I have confidence in all of our MPs."
National Party president Peter Goodfellow said the board will meet in a few days to start drafting the terms of reference for the review into the party's campaign.
"The internal review process is already underway so each of the various streams of work during the campaign are doing their own reports and analysis," he told reporters.
"I think we've got to wait for the review because it will tell us independently, as well as from the analysis internally we're doing, what the conclusions are."
He said even if it were completed by Christmas it would still not be released until next year.
