Election 2023 editorial: Caretaker Government to continue awaiting coalition agreement

NZ First leader Winston Peters (centre) is the kingmaker after the final election result ensured National's Christopher Luxon (right) and Act's David Seymour needed support to form the next Government. Photo / NZ Herald

EDITORIAL

Voters now face another week with a caretaker Government and another week without knowing which policies have survived coalition negotiations.

New Zealanders went to the polls a month ago today and are none the wiser as to exactly what the next three years means for them.

Unless the next Government is formed today, this set of negotiations will become the second-lengthiest in the history of MMP.

In Winston Peters’ first rodeo of coalition talks in 1996, the NZ First leader didn’t announce a deal with National’s Jim Bolger for almost two months (election day was October 12 - and Peters revealed his pick on December 10).

Things were faster in 2005 (election day was September 17, the coalition announced on October 17) and faster again in 2017 (election day was September 23 and Peters sided with the Jacinda Ardern-led Labour on October 19).

Not so this time around.

Despite almost a fortnight for the leaders to lay the groundwork for talks once special votes were delivered on November 3, Christopher Luxon, David Seymour and Peters hardly appear to be moving with any urgency to form the next Government.

Luxon said when the special votes came in that he was keen to “get cracking”. He needs to do just that.

Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking on Monday, the incoming Prime Minister said an “awful lot of ground” had been covered in discussions with NZ First and Act.

“We’ve gone through the manifestos and full policy positions for all three parties.”

Discussing every single policy was a huge amount of work, Luxon said.

“We’re very aligned on the big goals but [we have] different policy mechanisms for how we deliver those goals.”

Talks were now into areas that were “a bit crunchier” and discussions about Cabinet posts were under way.

The fact that Luxon is intent on keeping secret what has already been agreed to - and the sticking points still to be worked through - adds to the frustrations about the wait.

New Zealanders would be more willing to indulge longer negotiations if they had concrete updates as to where matters were at, as opposed to vague assurances from Luxon.

Luxon yesterday said he believed it could take another week to make a deal and that he doesn’t think he’ll be heading to Apec, scheduled to begin in San Francisco this week.

That’s a missed opportunity for Luxon to build up his profile internationally. He has big shoes to fill in that regard, given the attention which Ardern had garnered overseas since 2017.

But more importantly, flying to Apec would mean that a Government was formed - and much-needed certainty for the country had been provided.