In the three weeks between election day and the release of the final vote count, many thought Christopher Luxon had succeeded in stopping leaks about coalition negotiations.
But it increasingly seems that there simply wasn’t much to leak. The trio of right-leaning political parties weren’t really negotiating at all.
When the clock struck midnight on October 14, now more than a month ago, everybody understood that New Zealand First would be needed in Government.
And yet, coalition talks did not begin in earnest until all votes had been counted and the final results were published two weeks ago.
Luxon let on as though talks were proceeding behind the scenes during those three weeks and that a government could form shortly after the writ was returned.
Peter Dunne, a political commentator, told Interest.co.nz National could’ve started sounding out NZ First even before election day — with polls showing the party would be needed.
Two weeks was not an unreasonably long time for talks, he said, but it was frustrating for the public who had been told it would be completed quickly.
An online poll conducted by Talbot Mills found 60% of New Zealanders thought it was taking too long to form a government. There was a 4.9% margin of error, but only 22% were happy.
Once negotiations did kick into gear, the veil of secrecy Luxon had cast began to slip. A steady stream of public comments and private leaks have offered quite a lot of insight into the talks.
Here’s an non-exhaustive list of things that have been reported in the media:
- The parties are renegotiating National’s flagship tax plan, because NZ First opposes allowing foreign buyers back into the housing market.
- The Act Party has been insisting on its Treaty of Waitangi referendum, but the parties might have come up with an alternative way to lessen its importance in law.
- Luxon had thought he could get a deal done in time to go to APEC this week and gave draft offers to Act and NZ First last Friday. This only succeeded in offending Winston Peters and causing him to form an alliance with David Seymour.
- Peters skipped a three-party meeting earlier this week and met up with Singapore’s foreign minister instead. Luxon and Seymour were forced to travel to Auckland to meet the smallest party leader on his terms.
- Seymour has hinted that all three parties are likely to sit around the cabinet table in a full coalition arrangement — although this hasn’t been confirmed.
- A list of Northland-specific issues have been raised, including the possibility of reopening the Marsden Point oil refinery and a Whangarei dry dock.
- ACT has been pushing for deeper cuts to the public service staff numbers and NZ First wants a broader fast-track consent process for all types of infrastructure.
Comments made Friday suggest the three parties are getting earnestly close to a deal, despite the rocky start, and they are expected to continue talks through the weekend.
Dunne said there was a risk the bumpy landing would cement a perception that Luxon is not able to control his government, and that view could stick throughout the full term.
It might start to look like a National-managed coalition, instead of a National-led government.
Apparently the subject of deputy Prime Minister and other portfolios was raised in the Friday meetings.
Seymour leads the largest support party, and therefore has the strongest claim, but hasn’t expressed a strong interest in doing the job.
On the other hand, Peters has done it before and would likely enjoy doing so again.
I’ve no insight into who will get the gig, but Nicola Willis is the best candidate by a mile.
Giving her the job would be a stamp of authority on Luxon’s National-led government and force the other two blokes to tamp down their egos.
56 Comments
In 2020 Labour were handed the government in no small part by National self destructing. Three years later National similarly benefited from Labour’s self destruction. In either case that demonstrates that the electorate is more voting out rather than voting in, in other words voting negatively. And alongside that it is arguable that in the last three elections neither major party had done even minimal contingency planning as to coalition probabilities. Seems to be unfortunately, that the aims, provisions and merits of MMP are beyond both the electorate and the relative political parties and resultantly MMP is somehow viewed to formulate government by reverting to FFP expectations.
What on earth are you talking about? My comment did not suggest that a FPP result for any one party would be preferable. I voted for MMP for precisely the reason of Muldoon’s shenanigans, and expect many others did so as well. You have missed the point completely. The suggestion was that the electorate is of neither sufficient size nor maturity to do MMP justice and ditto for the relative political parties. Why else, as per my post, were the parties in recent elections so unprepared to consider coalition possibilities productively beforehand and why is the electorate so impatient for a government to form as if it had been voted in under FPP? That’s why I qualified, with the word “expectations” for heavens sake.
National really didn’t have a viable coalition partner in 2017. And that in itself reveals how the workings and merits of MMP have not been productively grasped in NZ. Junior coalition partners disappear as fast as they arrive.The Alliance disappeared with Jim Anderton, NZF has been in and out & dependant on WP’s presence, ACT was reduced to Epsom being handed to them and a similar case for United Future, the initial Maori Party was taken out by Labour. So on that form you can only conclude that the electorate’s support is fickle at best, punishing at worst. Ironically though, the Greens have consistently been returned to parliament, yet have never been in a formal coalition with cabinet seats.
I live in the Port Waikato electorate. We have a choice of National, ACT or a bunch of conspiracy theorists and single issue parties. It shows the distain the Wellington Labour party have for the Auckland area that they didn’t stand a candidate. No Green or Top either. Do I go anti treaty or anti choice? No centre left option.
you could stand deaf dumb puppy dog in port waikato for national and it would when as MP hands down.
so what is the point of other parties wasting funds for no gain of any type, its different during election time as the other parties are there to drive up their party vote
He's a terrible leader because leading means getting people to follow you and he can't even get his two allies to follow him. So yes he's a terrible leader. Being a good corporate bitch is very different to being a good politician. Jacinda had wrapped this up by now and NZF is and was less aligned with Labour than National.
Working for a multi-national corporate is not real world experience unfortunately. Would be like saying someone who worked at McDonalds for 10 years is an experienced chef.
Maybe if he had experience working for a private equity firm then he'd be more of an expert in mergers and acquisitions.
We sure have. I too have worked for a multi-national. I went through a merger nearly 15 years ago (large American corporate ) and have been on the receiving end of a few other acquisitions/mergers since then (all with the same company). Had 5 "company names" in 15 years.
I've met the CEO multiple times in our current company, knows everyone by name. Guess it's easier when you don't have over 100k staff on the books.
It's pretty easy to acquire companies when you have a $4b per year profit "cheque book" to play with and the backing of the shareholders.
I don't doubt he's held some high level positions. But he was never on his own, even as a CEO. A multi-national corporate as big as Unilever is successful due to its sheer size, market share and momentum. Not because Luxon had his hands on the helm for 3 years.
Sure, well done Luxon pat on the back for getting to that level. Not everyone has what it takes to get there but being that far above the clouds is not real world. Maybe if he had helped turn the company around from the brink of collapse then sure.
i thought at the time what a stupid thing to say, all the companies i have been with that have gone through mergers and acquisitions it is generally the company that has the power makes all the rules and calls the shots and the party getting taken over is just trying to save their jobs and make sure the guys at the top either get a generous payout or a senior position, as for day to day stuff 99% of the time processes are changed to the way of the major company does or runs things , how would this even work in politics when you have parties that are determined to survive and get things done how they want it done
“I’ve done a lot of mergers and acquisitions”. With the exception of the Air New Zealand-Virgin alliance that broke up when he was chief executive..there is little evidence of any other mergers Luxon worked on in his business career.
Porkies porkies
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/christopher-luxons-embarrassing-coalition…
Will be very interesting at the end of this to see if Winston has mellowed in his old age...............If I hear one more adjective about how good these negotiations are going...........Its starting to sound like a chapter from Enid Blyton.........the talks went splendidly again today said Peter........... lol
Chris Trotter's latest, bang on this topic.
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-most-unlikely-trinity.htm…
(Unfortunately, it seems that there's still life in the old left's self imposed class struggle)
“Here’s a non-exhaustive list reported by media”. You know, the people who haven’t been involved in a larger negotiation than their salary or what their wife is going to cook them for dinner. Safely ignore and carry on. Of course the same people had no issue with Ardern and Peters and their negotiation.
Re: It might start to look like a National-managed coalition, instead of a National-led government.
Sounds like this may well be the result here, even if it wasn't the objective when talks began in earnest. Not sure how strong and stable this arrangement would be. Has NZ had a three-way coalition government before?
"Key had confidence and supply agreements with the following parties: ACT, United Future, and the Māori Party"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_National_Government_of_New_Zealand
Sounds like what might be going right now is an attempt to stitch up a formal three-way coalition. If that is the case, no wonder it's taking a while to finalise.
Confidence and Supply is just an agreement with an Opposition Party not to bring that government down. The Labour Party has shanghaied the Green Party with Confidence and Supply Agreements for years. Meanwhile that Party wondered why they made so little progress with their own agenda! Peters is the only person who has really known how to 'play MMP'. That said the Maori Party got some good gains working with Key.
The number of special votes is getting silly. This number could massively be reduced by having a cut-off date for voting registrations. Being allowed to register and vote on the day is mad. I would suggest if you don’t have the capacity to register in advance, have you got the capacity to make decisions around voting?
i think the whole process needs rethinking, after the polls close the poll has to sort the specials then send them all over the country. why are they not all just sent to a central location that can do recounts, the checking of the master etc.
1/2 the delay is moving votes around the country
I've never had much time for Shane Jones who frequently struck me as an entitled blowhard. However, I have to acknowledge that he's on strong & eloquent point in this interview:
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