National leader Christopher Luxon says he expects he and his coalition negotiation team will remain in Auckland for the weekend.
Yesterday he and his deputy Nicola Willis said negotiations were in the "final stages" and this morning ACT leader David Seymour said the three parties were "closer than we've ever been" to reaching an agreement.
Yesterday NZ First leader Winston Peters told media that until the final outcome was reached, it would be "premature, rash and irresponsible" to make any other comment.
He could not say how far away an outcome would be, as it was "in the hands of others as well".
"We going to try and resolve this with the greatest haste possible."
As the days tick over, Christopher Luxon is facing greater scrutiny on his well-publicised negotiation skills. (Source: 1News)
Arriving at the Cordis hotel this morning, where negotiations are being held, Luxon said National had meetings lined up with both ACT and New Zealand First this afternoon.
Asked if he could promise New Zealanders the coalition would last the full three-year term, Luxon said that was "why we're taking our time".
"We're making sure that we've got a really good foundation, that we understand each other fully. We're going through line-by-line item each of the manifestos. We've made tremendous progress."
Asked if ACT's proposed referendum on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi was still a possibility, Luxon said he wasn't "getting into that".
"I've done a lot [of negotiating], obviously, in my business life at Unilever and also at Air New Zealand.
"I'm not going into [examples] specifically.
"If you understand Unilever and you understand Air New Zealand, and what we did at Virgin, and what we did in other things, you'll understand what we did.
"Air New Zealand had a position in Virgin when I took on as CEO, and then I obviously sold the position."
Peters said a supposed meeting with Christopher Luxon and David Seymour in the capital earlier this week wasn’t on the agenda. (Source: 1News)
He said in those mergers and acquistions he learned it was important to "get the foundations right for a good agreement".
"If you don't have alignment on what you're trying to achieve, the goals by which you're trying to deliver against, that's important."
He said conversations would continue today.
"We'll work our way through the different conversation points that we have. When we're ready we'll make our way to Wellington, but I imagine we're going to be in Auckland over the weekend.
"There's a lot for us to discuss. Every party is showing up with their full manifesto, and we've gone through it line item by line item to understand what we are aligned around, what we can accept, what we actually know is important for each of the parties... and what we can't accept."
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