New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has said “we can’t all get what we want” when discussing a potential coalition with National and ACT.
The release of today's final election results saw National lose two seats, making it clear they will need to form a three-party coalition with ACT and New Zealand First to form a government.
National and ACT are on 59 seats combined, needing NZ First's eight seats.
Speaking to Sean Plunket on The Platform this afternoon, Winston Peters said he has to treat negotiations with urgency but can’t “be foolish about it”.
He said all three parties will need to compromise in places to make sure that the process is smooth.
"What can we agree on, we can't all get what we want, we have to get a sound much much better Government underway."
Peters said he spoke to the National leader shortly after the results were released at 2pm.
ACT leader David Seymour and Peters frequently clashed while campaigning – when speaking about this, Peters said: “We have to put our differences aside – that is the nature of politics.”
He said the most important thing for the three parties is to get into a room together – rather than separate discussions.
"This is not my first negotiation, I'm only negotiating with one side, so to speak, not two and that's why we can expedite this," Peters said.
He suggested negotiations take place between chiefs of staff, so less time is spent travelling.
"Frankly, if our chiefs of staff got in a room. It’s a matter of logistics. We’ve still got to keep doing our other work.
“I’ve said to Chris Luxon… look, the key thing is that your main man speaks to my main person so that every hour things are happening, then we can expedite this," Peters said.
"But if we do this personally, with all the travel, then this won’t work," he said.
Luxon keeps quiet on negotiations
It comes after the counting of special votes 20 days after the election. (Source: 1News)
When speaking to media, Luxon declined to comment on a deadline for when coalition arrangements would be finalised.
"What I can tell you is that there is goodwill and good faith from all three political party leaders."
He said there have been "great conversations".
"I'm very confident having spoken to both leaders that everybody understands what's involved here.
"There's going to be tension between lots of different parties in this place."
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