How long will coalition negotiations take?

Chris Hipkins wants to form a new government by Christmas, Winston Peters reckons he'll have it done by November 7, and Christopher Luxon and Qiulae Wong haven't set a deadline.

From the moment the first results start rolling in on election night, politicians and their advisers will be obsessively running the numbers and gaming out their negotiation tactics and potential paths to victory. 

Even if the outcome is immediately clear, it could take days or weeks before the exact makeup of the government is confirmed while the parties hash out agreements about ministerial portfolios and policy commitments. 

For the rest of us, it’ll be a period of waiting and wondering. Negotiations typically happen behind closed doors and the press gallery is left to report inane minutiae about the choice of conference rooms or Chris Bishop crashing an e-scooter. 

There are two likely scenarios for negotiations after the 2026 election: 

1. The Opportunity Party holds the balance of power and enters negotiations to form a government with the right bloc of National, Act and New Zealand First or the left bloc of Labour and the Greens (and Te Pāti Māori if necessary). 
2. National, Act and New Zealand First win enough seats to continue governing and negotiate a new coalition arrangement between themselves. 

Other less likely scenarios that could be possible if polling has missed the mark include: 

• A centre-right government of National, Act and Opportunity without New Zealand First. Qiulae Wong hinted towards this last week when she said ruling out Winston Peters’ party was a “serious consideration”. 
• A centre-left government of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori without Opportunity. Labour leader Chris Hipkins has kept Te Pāti Māori at arm's length but hasn’t entirely ruled out working with them. 

So, once we know the results, how long could it take the parties to reach an agreement? It’s almost impossible to guess. The shortest negotiation period of the MMP era was in 2008, when the John Key-led National Party signed confidence-and-supply deals with Act, United Future and Te Pāti Māori within eight days of the election. The longest was in 1996, the first MMP election, when New Zealand First dragged out discussions for 59 days while Winston Peters took a fishing holiday before forming a government with National. 

Elections where a kingmaker party runs dual negotiations (1996 and 2017) typically take longer for a government to be formed, though this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule. The primary predictive factor from the past seems to be that negotiations take longer when Winston Peters is involved. The 2023 coalition negotiations took 41 days, the second-longest ever, even though it was never in doubt that National, Act and New Zealand First would be the three parties in government.

Though it should be noted that the 41-day count in 2023 was strongly disputed by some of those involved. Winston Peters insisted at the time that the process had actually taken 21 days from the official declaration of results, including special votes, which take longer to count. 

However, the victorious parties in previous elections haven’t always felt the need to wait for the final count before signing up to deals. National’s confidence-and-supply agreements with United Future and Act in 2008, 2011 and 2014 were all signed before special votes had been counted (negotiations with Te Pāti Māori were completed after the final vote count in 2011 and 2014). 

Election day in 2026 is on November 7 and the results will be confirmed on November 27. If negotiations this year follow the same timeline as 2023, a new government won’t be formed until December 18. 

Politicians will be eager to get the agreements wrapped up before Christmas, though not all of them seem to be equally concerned about the deadline. Chris Hipkins promised last week that a Labour-led government would be formed by Christmas if he had the numbers to do so, though National leader Christopher Luxon told RNZ’s Morning Report the negotiation would “take as long as it takes” and would likely wait until after the final vote count on November 27. 

In August, Winston Peters told reporters at parliament that negotiations would be wrapped up by November 10, three days after election day, though he didn’t elaborate on why he thought a deal would be struck so quickly. 

Ultimately, the person who determines how long negotiations take is the one who holds the strongest cards. Polling would suggest the most likely scenario is for that to be Qiulae Wong and the Opportunity Party. Wong has made it clear that she is open to working with either side, despite Luxon repeatedly ruling out Opportunity. She hasn’t set a target date for completing negotiations but has said that she will seek to make a deal with the party with the most seats first and would only approach the other side if that failed, rather than running dual negotiations with both major parties.