Time for a negotiation clock?

taken a month, only half the time it took to piece together our first Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) Government in 1996. It took exactly a month from the September 17 election in 2005 for an arrangement which saw Labour in coalition with the Progressives and with confidence and supply agreements with NZ First, United Future and the Greens to be concluded, though National leader Don Brash had conceded defeat on October 1 in an election significantly closer than this year’s.

As Labour leader Jacinda Ardern pointed out in an interview on Radio NZ on Tuesday, it’s only 10 days since the results of the special votes, 15 per cent of the overall votes cast this year, were released. National’s loss of two seats, with Labour and the Greens each picking up one, strengthened the possibility of a centre-left coalition Government emerging from the current process.

Factor in that Dutch political parties have just taken a record 208 days to conclude a four-party coalition agreement and the time we’ve waited here seems insignificant.

But let’s consider some other factors. Peters, who, regrettably to many on both sides of the political spectrum, holds the balance of power, had originally intended to have this wrapped up by Writ Day, October 12. The fact it wasn’t going to happen started filtering through shortly before that date, when we began to hear of the difficulty of getting the party’s mysterious board together. A time limit may have injected urgency into proceedings, perhaps encouraged NZ First to have board members on standby for an urgent gathering.

We’ve had MMP for 21 years and this is the third time the election process has rumbled on well past polling day like this. Surely we should be learning from past experiences to refine how we do this?

Such delays can slow down the country’s economic engine. The housing market, for example, tends to slow in the run-up to an election. Anecdotal evidence is that it’s yet to get back up to anything like normal speed. Like potential home buyers, those looking to invest in other areas would understandably be skittish.

Our electoral cycle is short at three years. With the best part of the third year dominated by preelection jostling, a significant delay in forming a new Government means further cutting into an already constrained legislative timetable.

So surely a time limit is something to carefully consider? Or perhaps we could extend the electoral cycle by a year?