National Party leader and Prime Minister-elect Christopher Luxon said coalition talks are progressing at "great speed", with New Zealand First leader Winston Peters and ACT leader David Seymour set to "catch up" without Luxon ahead of final talks.
It comes after Friday's final vote tally for the general election showed National and ACT will need NZ First to form a majority government.
Seymour and Peters have publicly clashed in the past, with the pair frequently trading jabs.
Seymour revealed on Friday that he'd reached out to NZ First after election night – but hadn't had a reply. Peters had since said he thought the text may have been a fake.
"I've spoken to both leaders over the weekend," Luxon told Breakfast. "They're gonna catch up.
"It might've taken them a while to get there, but it's good that they want to meet independently, which is great.
"We're gonna keep cracking on now and make sure we make some good progress over the course of this week."
Asked for clarification, Luxon confirmed the pair would meet without him initially ahead of a full meeting "in due course".
"Ultimately, we'll bring all three parties together, and that's what we'll do," he said.
"There's been good alignment across all three parties about what we're trying to achieve."
Luxon said National had come "a tremendously long way in a very short period of time", and pushed back on suggestions his video saying National would work with NZ First had validated people's decision to vote for Peters' party.
"Absolute rubbish," Luxon said. "We live in an MMP environment and the reality is, people are free to vote for whoever they wish, the parties make their case during the campaign, the New Zealand voter is never wrong.
"We're working our way through our set of conversations and in fairness, we want to do that with good will and good faith, working with all those individual leaders.
"We had clarity at 2pm on Friday, we're moving with great speed, all three leaders want to be able to form a strong and stable government."
Luxon said he expects recounts in Nelson and Mt Albert, where National candidates were beaten by narrow margins.
SHARE ME