Analysis: The final election results mean that Christopher Luxon must reach an agreement with Winston Peters before he can form a government.
After that, his first task will be to appoint a cabinet and he has been given clues about who will get some of the top jobs.
Labor leader Chris Hipkins will face a caucus meeting where his future will be decided and the ‘Chippy camp’ is said to be confident of keeping his seat.
Among all the details of the final election results, only one thing really mattered – National and ACT do not have a majority and Christopher Luxon has to strike a deal with Winston Peters before he can form a government.
It wasn’t what he wanted. Luxon has said many times that his preference was a “strong and stable” National/ACT government.
Before the counting of special votes, this was possible, albeit with a majority of seats.
The final results were stolen from him as National lost two seats, giving National and ACT a combined 59 seats and needing 62 to have a majority in a parliament that now has 122 MPs.
And it will be 123 MPs after the by-election in Port Waikato on November 25, which National is expected to win.
So NZ First’s eight seats are now an absolute necessity for Luxon.
The deal between National and ACT is not expected to be difficult, the foundations have been laid for that, but NZ First is another matter.
Luxon and Peters have held at least one meeting, but the contact is believed to have been more of a “get to know you” exercise and the hard work is still to be done.
How difficult that will be is largely up to Peters.
He has given nothing away since the election, although his comment that he believed a deal could be reached relatively quickly could suggest he sees no serious sticking points.
“I think it can happen a lot faster than people think,” he told Sean Plunket on The Platform.
It appears that Peters is keeping his distance from ACT.
“Until today, NZ First and ACT have not spoken,” Stuff political editor Luke Malpas said shortly before the final results were announced.
“NZ First sources say they will not speak to ACT, while ACT’s attempts to engage with NZ First have been ignored.”
This is characteristic of Peters. During previous talks to form a government, he only dealt with the major parties and ignored other smaller coalition partners.
At his press conference after the announcement of the final results, Luxon gave nothing away.
There was good will and good faith on all sides, he would form a government as soon as possible and that was what both ACT and NZ First leaders wanted, he said.
Questions about policies were met with “I’m not getting into that” and he didn’t say whether he wanted a full coalition with the others or trust and supply deals.
Luxon said he would like to go to the APEC summit in 10 days, but would not put a deadline on the formation of his government.
All the final results are on the RNZ website and there are some surprising results. Te Pāti Māori won two more electorate seats, including that of Labor deputy leader Kelvin Davies.
When an agreement is reached on the shape of the government, Luxon’s next task will be to form his cabinet.
His last post on it was just two roles – his own as Prime Minister and his deputy Nicola Willis as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He has to say he hasn’t made decisions on the other portfolios because he doesn’t know what ACT and NZ First will want, and until he does he won’t be able to appoint any of his MPs.
However, he has given very clear indications of who will get some of the important portfolios and Stuff has gathered some offers for it.
Health is great. Shane Reti, the former Northland GP, has been National’s health spokesman since July 2020. He has been very critical of the state of the health service.
In mid-September Luxon told reporters: “Shane Ratty, he’s going to make an excellent health minister, no question about it. Who else would you want to do the job?”
And who else would? No minor coalition partner party is known to have ever sought it, it is not known as the graveyard portfolio.
Mark Mitchell must be sure about the police minister. He has been a police spokesman since December 2021 and announced strong gang policies during the campaign. He also announced the boot camp policy for young offenders.
“We have a great member on our team, Mark Mitchell,” Luxon said, also in mid-September. “He’s an award-winning police officer. He’ll make a fantastic police and corrections minister.”
Luxon plans to create three new roles – he will have a minister for mental health, a minister for space and a minister for hunting and fishing.
Matt Doocey has been a spokesperson for mental health and suicide prevention since January 2021.
Last year Luxon said Ducey would be the inaugural mental health minister. He is a former counselor and mental health worker.
“We will have a dedicated mental health minister, who will be Matt Doocey, who will focus on mental health and suicide prevention,” Luxon said.
He also said Doocey would be a cabinet minister, not a junior non-cabinet minister.
He has not spoken about the other two new roles. They are not likely to be leadership portfolios like Doocey’s and could be given to other ministers as secondary responsibilities.
Other MPs who are almost certain to get senior posts are Chris Bishop, the housing and infrastructure representative. Erica Stanford who has an education. Gerry Brownlee handling external affairs and Simeon Brown, transport.
Although Luxon has locked in Willis as finance minister, she has not said she will be deputy prime minister. That’s because David Seymour or Winston Peters might demand the job.
Neither has given any indication that they want to. Seymour said he wants to be regulation minister so he can get to work cutting red tape.
The Herald’s Audrey Young said Willis should absolutely be deputy prime minister and he explained why in an article titled “Nicola Willis is the clear choice for deputy prime minister after Winston Peters’ collapse and David Seymour’s tax dig”.
Young said both would contend for the position, but both would be problematic, for different reasons.
“Peters, who has shown relative restraint, discipline and good humor throughout his campaign, has come out on top,” he said.
“His tweet suggesting that the 2019 mosque massacre inquiry had revealed secrets previously withheld by Jacinda Ardern was pure conspiracy.
“And instead of admitting he was wrong when presented with the evidence, he became more inventive in his conspiracy.”
Young said that was the big concern – “less the mistake itself, but the inability and unwillingness to recover from it”.
Seymour would be less concerned about Luxon as deputy prime minister, but his “free-flowing comments in the media suggest he may be too free-spirited a politician to speak for the government rather than the ACT”.
Young said Seymour did not follow Luxon’s example of avoiding policy discussions.
“He suggested that National’s promise of tax cuts might not happen for another three years, which is not exactly the way to win friends,” he said.
Columnist Matthew Hooton, writing to the Heraldhe did not believe that Peters should hold office in the new government.
“I think Winston Peters has gone too far for any decent person to want to serve in government,” Houghton said.
“If there is no other explanation for his nightly tweets, then he is, in my view, at best a moral moron or, at worst, used the terrible events of March 15 to make some sort of short-term tactical point in the coalition. negotiations, even if we know it’s wrong.”
Chris Hipkins, still prime minister and leader of the Labor Party, has been virtually invisible this week.
He did the usual radio and TV interviews, telling Newshub he was still “quite passionate” about politics and the Labor Party.
As for his own future, he said he was confident colleagues were talking to each other and that the caucus would meet after the final results were known.
When that happens, there will either be a vote of confidence in Hipkins to continue as leader, unopposed, or there will be a challenger.
said Stuff’s Tova O’Brien a caucus meeting was scheduled for next Tuesday, November 7.
“Camp Chippy feel pretty confident that their guy has the numbers to retain the leadership of the Labor Party and there is a desire to call for a vote to establish Chris Hipkins’ dominance as soon as possible,” O’Brien said.
The party went through the same process after the last election, which is required by its constitution, and Jacinda Ardern was unchallenged and unanimously endorsed as leader.
O’Brien said it wouldn’t be so easy this time.
“Some in the caucus are grumbling, angry at Hipkins for prioritizing centrist ‘bread and butter’ policies at the expense of Labour’s bread and butter ideology,” he said.
“But talk of David Parker moving against Hipkins is not seen as a particularly serious threat by those in the Chippie camp.”
Under Labor rules, as current leader Hipkins needs 60 per cent of MPs, plus one extra vote, to back him. This means 21 out of 34 MPs.
It’s more difficult for a challenger, who needs 66 percent support from the caucus.
Candidates need 10 percent of the caucus to nominate them as challengers.
* Peter Wilson is a life member of Parliament’s press gallery, having spent 22 years as NZPA political editor and seven as Parliamentary Bureau Chief for NZ Newswire.