The votes are in – let the deal-making begin

It turns out the power of positive thinking did not go National’s way, and now Winston Peters and NZ First will be well and truly needed to govern in addition to ACT. After the more-than-600,000 special votes were counted, the size of the new Parliament today will be 122 seats. After the Port Waikato by-election later this month that will grow to 123 seats.

Once again special votes basically swung to the left – but not to the Labour Party. The combined centre-right vote – expressed in seats – fell from 61 seats on election night to 59 today. A majority in the House of Representatives will be 62 seats. On that maths, National and ACT will require three seats from NZ First’s eight to secure a majority. The total size of the new parliamentary majority, when it is formed, will be 67 seats: 48 for National, 11 for ACT and eight for NZ First.

This now puts Peters in a strong position to make some serious demands of Luxon, should he be so inclined to do so. He will play a significant role in forming a government for the fourth time in as many decades.

It will also make the task of forming a National-led government slower than it would have been had Peters not been needed, or needed only as insurance for a comfortable majority.

The new Parliament is larger because the two northern-most Māori seats – Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Tai Tokerau – which Labour held on election night, fell to Te Pāti Māori.

This gives Te Pāti Māori six out of the seven Māori seats, and more seats than it would otherwise have won from its share of the party vote, creating the overhang.

Ironically, the only one which the party lost was where Labour defector Meka

Whaitiri ran for Te Pāti Māori in IkaroaRāwhiti.

For Labour, this is a devastating result for its previously large Māori caucus which felt it had got a lot of runs on the board for Māori.

For the hard heads in National, this result was expected, even if something different was hoped for. National’s vote has fallen almost a full percentage point since election night, from 38.95% to 38.06%. Labour gained no more seats, and basically no more of the overall vote, moving from 26.90% to 26.91%. As with just about every losable competition in this election, Labour lost out, to Te Pāti Māori and to the Greens, which rose from 14 to 15 seats, growing its vote from 10.77% to 11.6%

National has lost a couple of electorate seats to Labour: Te Atatu and Nelson (by the barest of margins – 29 votes). Mt Albert was only won by Labour’s Helen White by 20 votes.

Tāmaki Makaurau, meanwhile, was lost by Labour’s Peeni Henare by a mere four – that’s right, four – votes to Te Pāti Māori’s Takutai Kemp.

All results are “subject to any applications for judicial recounts”. National is likely to ask for recounts in Nelson and Mt Albert, while Labour will likely be asking in Tāmaki Makaurau.

For Luxon the real work will now begin. There have been weeks of negotiations between National and the two other parties, but it will now become clear the extent to which that was shadow-boxing.

Although there have been intensive negotiations, including over potential seats around the cabinet table, now each party will play the hand it has been dealt.

There is, however, a key difference for NZ First compared to other negotiations. It has nowhere else to go.

The significance of this should not be overlooked. It is the first time since MMP began in 1996 where Peters is engaged in a negotiation where he is not playing two sides off against each other.

This is about the details of the deal, not the fact of the deal itself. That means that both NZ First and ACT can hold hold National’s feet to the fire. ACT will have certain issues that it will not budge on, as will NZ First.

Both small parties will want a mixture of jobs for political purposes with an eye to the 2026 election. ACT has never had major roles in government, and NZ First has never been returned to government (and has been voted from power and out of Parliament completely, twice).

NZ First and ACT have so far not spoken with each other. It is understood that NZ First does not wish to speak with ACT, and that ACT has tried to make contact through different channels at least four times, only to be ignored.

It will be up to National to mediate and balance each of their smaller partners in either coalition or supply-andconfidence arrangements. In a press conference in the National Party caucus room after the result, Luxon confirmed that he has been holding discussions with each leader separately and will be pulling them together in due course. He is clearly confident in his ability to do so.

Luxon is also in a good position to deal with Peters. The two of them have no baggage, no reason to not like or distrust each other, and Luxon isn’t tied to any previous National regime, although his close relationship with John Key and appointment of a number of Key-era staff is viewed warily by NZ First.

Peters for his part, in an interview with The Platform’s Sean Plunket yesterday afternoon, said that he was only speaking with one party, which he believed would expedite matters. He also made a point of saying that Christopher Luxon called him at two minutes past 2pm – in other words implying that he was called by Luxon before David Seymour.

Such can be the parlour games of coalition negotiations.

Now there are real numbers to play with. Ideally all three leaders want to wrap up negotiations by the end of next week. But three parties is a complex and agreeing on the finer details of a deal – especially when everyone won’t be in the room together until near the end (if at all) – could take time.

Let the deal-making begin.