A political commentator and ex-MP is warning National and ACT could face problems if they negotiate with New Zealand First.
National cruised to an election victory on Saturday night, landing almost 39 percent of the vote. But attention has now turned to the make-up of the coalition.
National and ACT have a very slim majority with 61 seats together in a 121-seat Parliament, but history shows the special votes tend to favour the left. National's campaign chair Chris Bishop backed up that sentiment, saying on Sunday National expects to lose "at least one" seat.
Political commentator Peter Dunne told AM the special votes might be different this year with a lot of them made up of "COVID exiles", so he thinks it might not favour the left as much as it has in the past.
But National should gain a seat when the Port Waikato by-election is held in late November, with its candidate the heavy favourite.
Dunne told AM co-host Ryan Bridge if National is "prudent" they would do some sort of deal with New Zealand First leader Winston Peters to shore up what could be a slim National-ACT majority.
"The question then becomes, what's the size of the policy? Is it formal engagement in the government and that includes ministerial roles and all that sort of thing, or do you seek a looser arrangement of a confidence and supply agreement, with other legislation being on a case-by-case basis," he said.
"They're the things that will have to pan out and I think if I was in National's shoes, I'd want to have a pretty clear view in mind before I began New Zealand First talks as to what outcome I want."
Dunne warns negotiating with the experienced Peters won't be easy and National and ACT will need to be careful.
"It seems to me the danger of negotiating with New Zealand First is you go to them with an effectively blank piece of paper," he said.
"I think [Christopher] Luxon and [David] Seymour need to work out first the shape and type of government they want and then go to New Zealand First and say, 'here's the deal we're prepared to offer' rather than, 'Hey, what will it take to get you on board' because if it's the latter course, then it becomes the option we've seen in the past."
The official election results aren't released until early November and with the by-election not until November 25, there are concerns negotiations could drag into December.
But Dunne believes the public won't accept that and National will try to get it sorted before the by-election.
"Parliament has got to sit within a certain specified period of the election and the risk is we don't have a government by the time Parliament is required to sit. The Governor-General has already said in that event, she delivers a caretaker speech from the throne, that would be pretty messy," he said.
"The second thing is Luxon has indicated there are a couple of important international engagements he wants to be at, I think early to mid-November, so there are a few pressures starting to build about the time by which negotiations have to be concluded... I suspect by early November, by the time the special votes are finally declared, the pressure will be on all the parties to come to some arrangement prior to that date or around that date and for the Port Waikato by-election to be a bit of a bonus later."
Watch the full interview with Peter Dunne in the video above.
