Andrew Dickens: Here comes the three-ring circus coaliation

Last Monday when I was hosting afternoon talkback I got a pithy little text that said "We've got rid of the clownshow and here comes the 3-ring circus."

It's pretty funny because it's pretty true and it's happened.

The counting of the special votes has confirmed that Luxon and Seymour need Winston and as we all know Seymour and Peters are not BEST friends. Critics warn of a conservative coalition of chaos. That won't be so but only if it's a coalition of compromise.

It could be worse. Labour, the Greens, New Zealand First and Te Pāti Māori together have 63 seats. In a parliament of 123, that means they could have theoretically stolen the election. So thank Chris Hipkins for ruling Winston Peters out before the election.

Now the horse-trading begins and the fight for influence between ACT and New Zealand First and the question exists as to who National will owe more to. The larger party, ACT, or the smaller party, New Zealand First, that gives them the final vital votes to form the government.

It's the age-old question of coalitions — the saga of the tail and the dog.

Meanwhile, the special votes have no good news for Labour. The final upshot is that just 26.9 per cent of New Zealand voted for the party. A sad result after over 50 per cent supported the party a short 3 years ago.

The ultimate sign of the disaffection is Mt Albert where Helen White has held on but with an even smaller majority than on election night. In 2020 the majority was 20 thousand votes. Now it's just 20. A brutal swing which shows the verdict on the party, the policies and the candidate. There is no way that Helen can continue to say she's done well.

And despite all the concessions Labour made to their Māori caucus and the policies that gave many New Zealanders conniptions, Māori have turned around and given their seats to Te Pāti Māori. The ultimate snub was to Labour's deputy leader Kelvin Davis, who has lost his seat. And if he's true to his word then he'll have to resign. Which can I say might be a blessing for Labour as it tries to rebuild.

So here we are with a parliament of 122 seats about to become 123 under the bizarre vagaries of MMP. Certainly, if we had First past the Post this would have been a more clearcut process of government formation. But we don't.

We have what we have and it's now over to our political leaders to show the maturity to stitch together a stable government to lead us through a period of time that becomes more complicated as time goes by.

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