With the 2023 Election wrapped up, bar Port Waikato, coalition negotiations are set to begin tomorrow between National, ACT and - as of Friday's final vote count - New Zealand First.
One of the faces set to be at the meeting table is ACT Party Leader David Seymour, who told Q+A this morning that he "certainly hopes" a new deal and new government will be formed in a week's time, though did not put any stakes in the ground.
"I'm one of three parts of a negotiation, and the outcome of that is not determined by any one person," he said.
He said it was clear ACT and National initially had a "two-party government possible" in their hands, but now it has become "a three-party government necessity".
"That's gonna require all three parties to come together with a workable arrangement."
Away on a retreat with his caucus today, Seymour said himself, Deputy Leader Brooke van Velden and ACT MP Nicole McKee would be at the negotiating table from tomorrow, as well as the party's chief of staff and a representative from the party board.
Seymour also reflected on Te Pāti Māori's tripling of seats from 2 to 6, its highest overall count in the party's history, attributing the success to "tactical voting behaviour".
"They've made a lot of promises, they campaigned on an Aotearoa Hou and a hope that they could make a big difference.
"I think the challenge for them will be to go beyond the TikTok and the theatrics and say 'how do you actually get better housing, better education, jobs and economic opportunity?' Those are the real challenges."
He said Te Pāti Māori's election results says "a lot less than you imagine" about Māori communities' response to ACT's treaty referendum proposal.
"You've gotta remember, over half of Māori don't actually enroll on the Māori roll, and if you look at the party vote nationwide ... Te Pāti Māori got about 3% ... but it is less than one in six of those who identify as Māori, so i think what the election has shown is that the particular brand of politics, the attitudes and the style that they bring is very much a minority view within Māoridom and a tiny minority view within New Zealand as a whole."
He refused to answer if ACT would support a government without a guarantee of a Treaty referendum, saying it would be "negotiating via media" and that everyone at the table promised not to do it.
"What can I say is ACT's position ... and that is that the principles of the Treaty are something that deserve to be debated by all New Zealanders, not just the courts, not just the Waitangi Tribunal, not just the public service, but everybody who is affected by New Zealand's constitutional settings."
Q+A's Jack Tame also spoke with National MP Chris Bishop yesterday, who said he had been at the table for the past three weeks alongside Prime Minister-elect Christopher Luxon and Deputy Leader Nicola Willis.
Despite the final result being the second-lowest for National in the past 20 years, Bishop said the party was "overall pretty happy".
"Obviously we won the election and we just need to form a government with ACT and New Zealand First now ... we just gotta get that government together over the next few days and go forward from there," he said.
In terms of National for not ruling out Winston Peters or New Zealand First ahead of the election, he said the party will "just wait and see" if a price was paid.
"We've been forging relationships and having discussions over the last three weeks ... we fully anticipated [losing at least one seat] so we've just been working over the last few weeks on the assumption that we would be losing votes.
From tomorrow, he said the plan is to "format government" and to have negotiations and relationship-forming "step up a notch".
"There are meetings happen, they're in largely boring rooms ... When we're ready to form a Government you'll be the first to know," he kidded with Tame.
"Let's just wait and see."
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