Luxon remains quiet on coalition progress

Christopher Luxon was supporting National’s Port Waikato byelection candidate, Andrew Bayly, in Pukekohe in southern Auckland today.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) was set to run until 17 November, but Luxon said his priority was building a new government.

“We’ve been pushing on conversations through the course of the weekend and will continue to do that. We’re working really hard to do exactly that and complete these negotiations and if we have them completed, we’ll go to APEC and if we don’t, we won’t.”

Luxon said it would be good for New Zealand to be at APEC to represent New Zealand’s interests.

“Really for me, it’s about making sure we have good bilateral meetings and a good opportunity to say to the world that New Zealand is open for business again, that’s one of the really big focuses and particularly the opportunity to spend time with the ABAC group as well.”

The ABAC group is an independent group of business leaders advising APEC leaders on priority issues for business in the region.

Luxon continued to remain tight-lipped about the details of coalition talks to form the next government.

But he said discussions were continuing this weekend with ACT and New Zealand First and good progress was being made.

He would not comment on speculation that the coalition talks had struck a sticking point due to New Zealand First’s opposition to National’s foreign buyers tax policy.

“I appreciate there’s lots of commentators, there’s lots of people on the margins with lots of reckons. The reality is there are three leaders in the room, we’re talking with both party leaders and we are making good progress and there is good intention with all of those leaders to make sure that we can move through this process as quickly as possible, but importantly to form a strong and stable government and that’s what we’re doing.”

Luxon said he was not getting into any details around the coalition negotiations.