A coalition with Winston Peters has diminished the hopes of Auckland Mayor Phil Goff to create Maori seats on the Auckland Council.
Negotiations to form the next government start today between New Zealand First and the two main parties.
NZ First leader Winston Peters wouldn't negotiate with National, Labour or the Greens until special votes had been counted and each party knew how many seats it had.
That was settled yesterday: National has 56, Labour 46, NZ First nine, the Greens eight and ACT one.
Speaking on TVNZ's Q+A programme, Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said he believes council "should have the same system as the New Zealand Parliament has which is a proportionate system.
"If you choose to go on the Maori roll there will be a number of seats proportionate to the number of people who enroll in the Maori roll," Mr Goff said.
When asked what chance there would be of gaining Maori seats now as Winston holds the balance of power, he said it now "won't happen".
"I don’t think he would be in favour of that.
"I think you can take an intelligent guess and say that won't happen with a coalition government that he is a part of."
In order for Auckland council to introduce Maori seats, it would require the government to allow council the right to extend the number of seats.
"At the moment we have our ward councillors aligned with our local boards and the legislation doesn’t enable us to create another ward without throwing out all of that alignment."
Throughout the election, Winston Peters campaigned and then flip flopped around the prospect of having a referendum on Maori seats.
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