Coalition negotiations Q&A: What’s happening behind the scenes to form a new government?

If Prime Minister-elect Christopher Luxon was rattled by Friday’s final election results, he didn’t show it.

“Now we can get cracking,” Luxon told reporters an hour after he learnt National’s one-seat majority with Act on election night had been erased - thrusting Winston Peters and NZ First back into the kingmaker role. “We are working constructively with both parties. We are going to come together and form a strong, stable government.”

Peters and Act’s David Seymour appear to have missed the memo. Instead of coming together, they’ve been playing telephone tag - although yesterday brought something of a thaw in relations, with the support parties’ chiefs of staff getting together for an “introductory chat”.

Meanwhile, Luxon has adopted a cone-of-silence approach to negotiations that, says Herald political editor Claire Trevett, isn’t serving the public interest.

So, should the PM-elect tell us more? When are we likely to see a deal? Will Seymour and Peters eventually end up in the same room? We asked deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan to answer these questions and any others you have during a live online chat this morning.

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