Peters lines up team talks with Nats, Labour

Winston Peters will hold talks with both National and Labour today ahead of the special votes being counted on Saturday.

The NZ First leader said yesterday he would hold post-election preliminary discussions in Wellington with both parties today National in the morning and Labour in the afternoon.

None of the parties have officially said who their negotiation teams are yet but now that meetings are locked in decisions will be finalised.

It’s understood Labour was waiting to hear who NZ First would be bringing to the table before locking in their team.

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern and her deputy, Kelvin Davis, will lead the negotiations. National Party leader Bill English will head up their team.

The only comments Peters has made so far about his negotiating team is that it would be made up of about seven or eight people.

Peters has maintained since the those election on September 23 that he wouldn’t begin negotiations until after the final results had been returned on October 7.

These results would include more than 300,000 special votes, which accounts for 15 per cent of the vote.

On Tuesday the NZ First caucus held a marathon meeting, starting at around 11am and continuing on into the evening before they finally broke for dinner.

Those talks continued yesterday morning until noon when Peters headed to the airport to attend the funeral of friend and party stalwart Joyce Robertson in Tauranga.

It’s not yet known where Peters will be on Saturday when the final

15 per cent of the vote comes in but it’s possible he could be in Auckland and initial talks could begin up there.

Ardern is also scheduled to be in Auckland at the weekend.

Peters has insisted he can get a deal done in the five days between special votes coming in and his self-imposed deadline of October

12.