Officials talk while MPs take time off

3.00pm

Officials will continue talks over governing arrangements for a Labour-led government while MPs take a few days off, Green Party co-leader Rod Donald says.

Formal talks got under way yesterday when Labour separately met the Greens and United Future as Prime Minister Helen Clark seeks support for her minority coalition government.

These talks followed preliminary discussions on Monday.

Labour and Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition together have 54 seats and Miss Clark needs one or both of the parties to support her government so it has a majority in the 120-member Parliament. The Greens have eight seats and United Future nine.

She has not ruled out either party as a full coalition partner but has said she would prefer to run a minority government with support on crucial confidence and money supply votes.

Progressive Coalition leader Jim Anderton yesterday told NZPA he believed the most likely outcome was that United Future would support the Government for the three-year term.

He cited problems with the Greens over their opposition to an extension to the moratorium on the release of genetically engineered organisms.

"The Greens have put themselves in a position where they are saying that close to halfway through the term of this government they would not support it on confidence and supply," Mr Anderton said.

United Future and the Greens were yesterday keeping quiet on the detail of their discussions, with Mr Donald defending the secrecy as necessary to ensure the negotiations did not turn into a circus.

Specifics were being discussed and officials would continue the talks while MPs took four days off, he said.

Miss Clark is going cross-country skiing.

United Future leader Peter Dunne confirmed there would be more discussions but said it had yet to be decided when these would be.

He believed arrangements between Labour and its potential allies could be decided quickly.

Asked how long the talks could take, Mr Dunne replied "not nine weeks". He also said any agreement reached would not run to 64 pages.

This was in reference to the time it took New Zealand First to decide after the 1996 election whether to back National or Labour and the lengthy coalition agreement finally nutted out with National.

"I think this can be concluded relatively quickly," Mr Dunne told reporters.

"I think it's in the country's interests that we don't have the whole process of Government shanghaied for an indefinite period."

Miss Clark hopes arrangements can be put in place within a fortnight.

Mr Dunne said afterwards he was "comfortable" with discussions so far.

"It's the first meeting following the opening preliminary meeting (on Monday). We've set in place a process that we will follow and I'm comfortable with where we're at today."

The MP has said that under any arrangement he wants his party to be in the loop and have input to the formation of legislation.

He would not say whether yesterday's discussions were around a formal coalition or simply support on confidence and supply.

"We're talking with Labour about an arrangement by which we can work together.

"We're looking at this from the point of view of what's in the country's interests and also obviously what's in our best interests."

- NZPA

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