KEY POINTS:
John Key has just finished his first round of talks at Parliament with Act leader Rodney Hide and United Future leader Peter Dunne over their respective confidence and supply agreements.
Both parties pledged their votes for National during the campaign. A very tanned looking Hide reiterated it again today, as has Dunne.
It seems likely that Key will run a minority Government pretty much along the same lines that Helen Clark did last term, issuing confidence and supply agreements with allies Act and United Future.
Hide and Heather Roy met with Key for almost an hour an a half and will meet again tomorrow at 1 pm. Dunne's was bout 40 minutes.
The aim is to conclude a formal agreement within a few days. Key confirmed for the umpteenth time that Sir Roger Douglas won't be a minister and Hide has accepted that - as he always had to.
Key has confirmed that Hide will be a minister but probably outside cabinet (and without collective cabinet responsibility) where he can criticise aspects of the Government over which he has no responsibility.
You could say that Hide has no negotiating power because Act has already pledged what amounts to unconditional support for National.
But Act certainly has a moral right to argue hard for more than one ministerial post.
If United Future leader Peter Dunne - with just himself - has been promised an executive position, Act - which brings five MPs to the table - is entitled to expect something more.
At the very least Heather Roy could expect to get a chairmanship of a select committee.
It is the Maori Party that holds real bargaining power at present.
It seems to have convinced itself that because it holds just five of the seven Maori seats, its leverage has diminished.
That is not so. While National does not need the Maori Party's votes to form the Government it most certainly would like them to be Very Very Very Good Friends.
While a lot has been said about the quality of the relationship being of more importance to the Maori Party, numbers still matter to National.
And it is not the size of the bloc that matters but what can be advanced and stopped with that parcel of votes.
The Maori Party's five votes on confidence and supply would give it 70 out of 122.
The Maori Party's abstention on confidence and supply would give National 65, still a comfortable margin.
And with the Maori Party having the same number of votes as Act means that National will be in pretty much the same position Helen Clark was in during her second term when she could turn to the Greens to support some legislation and United Future to support others.
And in the numbers game involved in Government management, the Maori Party's five is as valuable as seven would be.
The fact that National might be able to pass legislation with the support of the Maori Party and United Future and without Act is valuable.
That can done with or without any agreement but having a formal relationship helps the management of Government.
Peter Dunne has gone in for his turn at talks with John Key now. I was surprised to hear that Dunne was not interested in being Speaker, a post National had thought him most suited to.
He would actually be good at it and while it would deny him a position from which to play the politics he has been used to, it would certainly give a different sort of profile.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the building Helen Clark has chaired what will probably be the last cabinet meeting.
Unfortunately she would not agree to a photograph at the start of the meeting, which was a disappointing decision for someone who puts such store on recording our history, both personally and as Minister of Arts, Culture, and Heritage.
