On the Tiles: How long to wait for new Government to be formed?

NZ First leader Winston Peters, National's Christopher Luxon and Act's David Seymour. Photo / Winston Peters

It’s been more than a month since election day the official day of the 2023 General Election and the country is still waiting for a Government to be formed.

Negotiations between National, Act and NZ First have been progressing, but there’s still no clear sign of when this wait might be over.

Speaking to NZ Herald deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan on the On The Tiles podcast, Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls people are starting to become frustrated by the long wait.

“It’s coming up to two weeks after the specials and still absolutely nada,” says Walls.

“I think we’re still relatively young in terms of our understanding of MMP in New Zealand, and we had the blessing in 2020 when there was no coalition needed, but people are quite rightly getting a little bit antsy about the wait.”

Coughlan points out the challenge for the National Party is it made a compelling argument that the Government needed to change because the system in New Zealand is fundamentally broken.

Having laid out that argument quite successfully, the country is now in the position of waiting weeks for anyone to start doing anything about the many problems that have been identified.

National leader Christopher Luxon was critical of the way negotiations were managed in 2017, but with him now in the hot seat, things have taken just as long, if not longer.

“Even if you take into account the added days for the specials this time around, it’s taken longer,” says Coughlan.

“It should have taken less time, if anything, because there is only one side in the negotiating process. It’s taken an absurd amount of time, given they don’t need to negotiate with Labour.”

So where does this leave Luxon, Act’s David Seymour and NZ First’s Winston Peters? And when can we finally expect a Government to be formed?

Listen to the full episode of the podcast to hear Coughlan and Walls elaborate on these issues and more.

On the Tiles is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available evenings every Friday.