Post-election coalition talks on ice in New Zealand

Ben McKay | October 16, 2023

New Zealanders must wait to learn the shape of their next government, as election winners National focus on chemistry-building rather than coalition-forming over the next three weeks.

It is clear the next government will be led by Chris Luxon’s National party, which turfed Labour from office with a huge swing in the October 14 poll.

However, the preliminary results show Mr Luxon’s National does not have a parliamentary majority with its preferred coalition partner ACT, and are likely to need New Zealand First in that arrangement.

“There’s a possibility there’s going to be a third person in this marriage as Diana once said,” ACT leader David Seymour told Newstalk ZB on Monday morning.

The election results are not final until an estimated 570,000 “special votes” – predominantly out-of-electorate and overseas voters – are added into the mix, and confirmed on November 3.

Mr Luxon indicated he will not look to form a coalition until those final votes are returned.

“I want to work respectfully with each of the political parties that are involved. We’re going to form a strong stable government. That’s really important,” he told TVNZ.

“We ultimately have to wait until we’ve got clarity over the special votes.”

Special votes usually favour parties of the left, and if that trend holds, NZ First will be needed in government.

On Sunday, National campaign chair Chris Bishop said his expectation was his party would lose a seat in the final tally.

If National and ACT were to benefit from the final votes, Mr Luxon confirmed the pair would attempt to govern with a tiny majority.

“If we can do it alone then we will,” he told Newstalk ZB.

In the meantime, he said all three parties were engaged in talks aimed at “relationship-building”.

“It’s about getting the chemistry right,” he said.

“We want to use the three weeks to actually progress relationships and start conversations.

“Having done a lot of negotiations in my life, if you’ve got a good strong relationship and chemistry, then you can actually work through the transactional issues.”

That relationship-building should be centred on Mr Luxon and Winston Peters, the leader of NZ First.

Mr Luxon and ACT leader Mr Seymour have met regularly in opposition, and are neighbours in Auckland’s affluent eastern suburbs.

However, Mr Luxon memorably told a leaders debate he “didn’t know” Mr Peters, who at 78 has been a fixture of Kiwi politics for more than four decades.

“Everyone knows him, he’s Winston Peters!” debate moderator Paddy Gower exclaimed in response.

Both Mr Luxon and Mr Seymour say talks over the next three weeks will be private.

“We’re not gonna conduct the negotiations publicly, the way they’ve been done previously,” Mr Seymour told Newstalk ZB.

The prolonged coalition talks time frame will make it hard for Mr Luxon to land his ambitious targets to hit the ground running.

The party wants to release a “mini-budget” before Christmas and has released a first 100 days plan – though that timer won’t start ticking down until ministers are sworn in.

Mr Luxon also has international engagements on the horizon very swiftly after the November 3 confirmation of results.

The Pacific Islands Forum is due to meet in Cook Islands from November 6-10, while US President Joe Biden is hosting the APEC leaders summit in San Francisco from November 15-17.

Prior to the election, Mr Luxon also told AAP he wanted his first international trip to be to meet Anthony Albanese, saying New Zealand’s ties with Australia was the country’s “most important relationship”.