If Prime Minister-elect Christopher Luxon was rattled by Friday’s final election results, he didn’t show it.
“Now we can get cracking,” Luxon told reporters an hour after he learnt National’s one-seat majority with Act on election night had been erased - thrusting Winston Peters and NZ First back
into the kingmaker role. “We are working constructively with both parties. We are going to come together and form a strong, stable government.”
Peters and Act’s David Seymour appear to have missed the memo. Instead of coming together, they’ve been playing telephone tag - although yesterday brought something of a thaw in relations, with the support parties’ chiefs of staff getting together for an “introductory chat”.
Meanwhile, Luxon has adopted a cone-of-silence approach to negotiations that, says Herald political editor Claire Trevett, isn’t serving the public interest.
