Coalition talks to continue in north

Three party leaders will keep negotiating in Auckland

Act will re-engage with National today and continue working towards a shared agreement, while the David Seymour-led party maintains contact with New Zealand First.

The three party leaders have been in Wellington for some of the past week but will head to Auckland to hold further talks over the weekend.

Seymour and NZ First leader Winston Peters briefly met twice in the past two days and it is expected the pair will speak further before a coalition deal is finalised.

Peters left Wellington yesterday afternoon, evading reporters who had waited throughout the day for him to make a statement.

It appeared much of the caucus had done the same as the group looked to prepare for the next phase of talks. Shane Jones told reporters he was flying back to Kerikeri yesterday.

Speaking to the Weekend Herald, Peters said his party would continue working from Auckland and accepted the week had been quite busy.

Asked how talks with Seymour had fared, Peters said: “Well, it was always going to happen about that time”.

He wouldn’t elaborate on how he and Seymour had got on. “That’s not a comment I’m going to make, I’m out to do a job and so is he.

“We’re focused on getting a clear understanding where we’re both going to go.”

Asked whether the pair’s collaboration was an effort to shift National’s stance in negotiations, Peters said he “can’t comment on the substance of things”.

Peters hadn’t spoken to National Party leader Christopher Luxon when contacted by the Weekend Herald yesterday afternoon but indicated the pair could speak later that evening.

The NZ First leader would be in Auckland for the weekend to continue negotiating while also meeting with some “international visitors” who he would not name but clarified were not linked to coalition talks.

Peters was confident his seven other caucus members were holding up well during negotiations.

“We’ve got former mayors and councillors and people like that who have been around the traps, so to speak, they’re not coming in as novices to this process.” He said it was likely he would return to Wellington next week. He wouldn’t describe his level of confidence in the three parties reaching a deal.

“I don’t want to make comments about being confident about this or that and the other thing, we have to sort these things out and we’ve only been at it for five days.”

Seymour told the Weekend Herald he would also be in Auckland for the weekend, but would likely be travelling between Auckland and Wellington over the next week.

He too would be working through the weekend “with both parties to get a deal as soon as possible”.

Luxon has previously said he hoped to attend the Apec Leaders’ Summit in the United States from Wednesday.

Seymour didn’t appear optimistic Luxon would make it.

“It’s challenging, just stepping through the logistics of who has to talk to who and check with whom. We’re not trying to be difficult, but there just are quite a few steps in there.”

He compared his experience of coalition talks to ocean swimming.

“It’s lots of activity and sometimes it’s hard to get a sense of how far you’ve moved sometimes.

“I know that’s frustrating a lot of people, but actually, it’s just meet, revise, check, meet, revise, check and so it goes, but we do gradually get closer to what people really need, which is a stable, united Government which can do the policy work.”

Seymour said he’d hoped to be in a position to take proposals to his party’s board this weekend, but said it was dependent on the outcomes of impending meetings.

Newstalk ZB understood Luxon met with Peters on Thursday and expressed his desire to attend Apec.

Luxon’s travel was reportedly less of a concern for Peters, who prioritised securing a durable deal.

Newstalk ZB reported Act and NZ First had made clear to the National leader their role in the next Government would not be minimised.

It was also confirmed yesterday that Luxon and caretaker PM Chris Hipkins had agreed to advise Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro to extend the current caretaker Government while the next Government was still being finalised.

Just what are NZ First and Act up to? The last two days have apparently been fruitful in terms of National’s ability to pull together its three-legged stool of government with enough putty to stop a leg falling off at the very start.

That is less to do with National, and more to do with NZ First leader Winston Peters and Act’s David Seymour holding their own talks without National in the room.

Both emerged from the second meeting — a very short 10-minute one — looking a little smug. One of them even referred to it as a “blossoming relationship”. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.

But it may also make National a tad nervous.

On one occasion during his wanderings from meetings, NZ First’s deputy leader Shane Jones used a line from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Another Shakespeare line starting to come to mind is Macbeth’s “double, double toil and trouble” as the witches brew up their “charm of powerful trouble”.

NZ First and Act are starting to form an alliance, and working out how they might be able to force National’s hand further on some issues.

The way both sides see it, using their collective strength is logical: turning up and saying “we both want this” would have more chance of getting it.

They have also decided that if it is going to work, they have to do it now before agreements are tied down. Once the agreements are in place, there is little wriggle room.

Yesterday’s talks were aimed at agreeing to do just that. The full negotiating teams of the two parties were in those talks. They ended after 10 minutes, and Seymour emerged to say they had been “productive” and he was very happy with them.

More talks between the two are expected this weekend to talk more about areas in which they can exercise their joint muscle and club together against National.

The smaller parties here do not usually club together in such a fashion — but one pointed to it happening in Germany.

For National, the most concerning area will be around its tax cuts promise: something both Act and NZ First have reservations about. It has already been a sticking point in the talks and is problematic for National because it is its bottom-line promise. The issues are not so much around the tax cuts as the timing, scale and the way National intends to pay for them.

NZ First in particular is opposed to reopening the door to foreign buyers, and this is something it will be fighting hard not to back down on.

There is also common ground on the Treaty and co-governance (Peters is opposed to Seymour’s wish for a referendum on the Treaty principles but does want changes to the inclusion of the Treaty principles in laws, its application to resource management laws and is opposed to the Marine and Coastal Area Act.)

National does not want to spend the entire term fighting over race issues.

This move from enemies to frenemies for Act and NZ First — especially Seymour and Peters — is no small feat. The short-term goal is gaining ground against National, but all three will be hoping it also results in a constructive relationship that will help keep the Government on a stable footing.

Until that happens, NZ First will not trust Act easily and vice versa: Act has not been uncritical of National, but has long been allied with it and Seymour has a longstanding relationship with Luxon. The concern will be that if sides have to be taken, that is where Act will default.

NZ First will be wary of anything that looks remotely like doubledealing as the talks continue.

Today Act is set to meet with National again, but as of last night there was no scheduled meeting between National and NZ First. That can, of course, change.

There will be meetings between Act and NZ First – NZ First is keen to sort out that area before it returns to National.

Luxon’s hopes of getting to the Apec summit in San Francisco are still in the balance.

Today, the Labour Government will have to be sworn in again to continue its caretaker duties. Luxon would have to leave for Apec on Wednesday.

Between now and then, the agreements have to be finalised. As things stand, Act has a draft agreement but NZ First does not. They have to agree on their own deals, and on each other’s.

Then both Act and NZ First have to get their caucuses and boards to sign off on it all.

Those approvals can happen relatively quickly once the details are in place. But the other issue is the long-term stability of the arrangement.

Act and NZ First are increasingly of the view that the talks and relationship-building efforts should not be rushed simply to meet the Apec deadline. However, there are still hopes that if they can sort out their differences — and their common areas — together before returning to National, it could be swift after that point.

It has at least been a more entertaining week than the radio silence that preceded it.

The shift back to Wellington of coalition talks resulted in the reemergence of the tradition of the great Winston stakeout: media waiting on all the routes he might take, seeking to capture the few grunts of largely meaningless nonsense he might bestow on the microphones.

The whole precinct joins in this game. Staff and other MPs happily report sightings: Shane Jones and Chris Bishop having coffee at the Bolton, NZ First having drinkies in the Sofitel lounge, Luxon out for a run, Bishop in the gym, Peters speaking in unhappy tones to his aide Darroch Ball on the travelator at

11.20am. We know NZ First’s crew ate dinners at Portofino, then at Dumpling House on the Terrace and then at the Green Parrot.

Peters models himself on a Carmelite nun for this tradition, with only an occasional lapse into full sentences.

Jones is prone to overcompensating for his leader’s reticence. He told media he’d been to Farmers to buy some singlets.

He erupts with cryptic references, usually in the form of literary quotes. So far we have had Thomas Becket and the aforementioned Merry Wives of Windsor: “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.”

The next day Jones’ script of choice was the scripture: “Galatians

6:9.”

That verse is “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Thus far we have not yet had his choice of an ancient Ma¯ori proverb (sometimes one of doubtful provenance), and that presumably means the talks are not quite done.