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Logistics and the number of hours left in the day worked against National, Act and New Zealand First announcing their coalition deal on Thursday.
Despite all three parties indicating on Wednesday night a deal would likely be struck in time for a public announcement on Thursday, it became clear by early afternoon there simply weren’t enough hours available to tick the last of the necessary boxes.
While negotiations concluded on Thursday morning, time ran out to get final board and caucus approvals, sort the details of how the announcement would take place, and sign-off the scripts and press releases required.
For that reason, another day passed the incoming government by and in a joint statement from the three leaders they confirmed “subject to agreement by all parties” a signing ceremony will take place on Friday at Parliament.
Three weeks since the special votes were released and 41 days after the election, Luxon is adamant Friday will be when the public sees what his government looks like and stands for.
Christopher Luxon told Newsroom he was “absolutely confident” the signing would take place, and he had that assurance from David Seymour and Winston Peters too.
Act has already fully ratified its deal with both its board and caucus, and New Zealand First and National are expected to do the same on Thursday night.
An announcement followed by a formal signing will take place first then Luxon plans to announce his Cabinet and wider executive later in the day.
Luxon is yet to tell his MPs which portfolios they have and speak to those who might have hoped they’d make the cut but haven’t.
He has said over the course of the negotiations the final signoffs would be a reasonably fast and straightforward process.
National’s caucus met on Thursday afternoon and the board has been kept abreast of developments during negotiations by the party president Sylvia Wood, who has been in regular contact with Luxon.
The full coalition deal will be released on Friday outlining the work programme of the government and all the policy wins for each party.
“It gives us a really defined work programme for the next three years, so there’s a lot of specificity there. That’s very deliberate so we’re very aligned in what we’re shooting for,” Luxon said.
He denied feeling political pressure to get things done faster and said it had been a comprehensive process.
Luxon said members of the executive would spend the weekend moving into their new Beehive offices ahead of a swearing-in ceremony at Government House on Monday.
Parliament will sit on Tuesday December 5.
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