National's deputy leader Nicola Willis says coalition negotiations are "in the final stages".
Willis spoke to media outside a central Auckland hotel today and said the parties had reached the final stages with "good will still at the table".
She was not, however, willing to put a timeframe on when an agreement would be reached.
It follows the first meeting of all three key players in the incoming coalition government yesterday - National leader Christopher Luxon, ACT leader David Seymour and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.
Today, Willis told reporters she believed the negotiations were at the final stages because the parties were now "really looking at the detail of each part of the written agreement".
Willis said the parties are now mulling over the finer details of the agreements. (Source: 1News)
She said it was a "distinctive situation because there are three parties that need to come together".
"We need to make sure that all three agreements line up so we are literally going through clause by clause, sentence by sentence, is everybody happy."
She said the allocation of ministerial portfolios would come next.
"Of course there has been some thinking about that. I think it would be fair to characterise everyone as really focused on policy, on what we're delivering for people, with a view to who are the leaders [who] are in place to deliver those policies as well."
Asked if New Zealand First had "killed" National's election policy to remove a ban on foreign buyers - which allow those buyers to purchase any New Zealand home over $2 million, with a 15% tax on the sale price - Willis said "no one's been killing anything".
Revenue from the change would help fund National's promised tax cuts plan.
"The approach has been more understanding where are people coming from, what are the principles, what are the values that are important to the respective parties.
"What there's really good agreement on - which I find really positive - is this idea that working people are being terribly affected by the cost of living, but it's imperative on the new government to manage the economy better and to deliver some results for them, including through tax reduction."
She said tax cuts would be "funded responsibly".
"I am confident that both Chris Luxon and I can stand here today and yet again commit to New Zealanders: you'll be getting your tax reduction."
She said the agreement would be the blueprint for what the incoming government wanted to achieve and how it wanted to achieve it, as well as how they would work together.
It also included understanding each party's motivations "so even if we don't agree on the detail, or the specific policy, we can find ways of ensuring that people are meeting the mandates they got from their voters".
She said details of the agreement would be "spelled out" but had not yet been revealed out of respect for one another and the confidentiality of discussions.
"But second, as you'll appreciate, in any negotiation, nothing's final 'til it's final."
Deal 'pretty close' - Luxon
Arriving at the hotel, Christopher Luxon also spoke to media.
Asked how negotiations were going, Luxon said "very good" and a deal was "pretty close".
"We had a very productive day yesterday. It started with the three leaders coming together. Winston Peters and myself and our chiefs of staff met then for most of the morning. David Seymour and I had lunch yesterday, talking about a few issues and then we met the full ACT team yesterday afternoon and Winston Peters and our chiefs, we carried on again at 6 o'clock last night."
Luxon said there were just "a last couple of issues" to make sure everyone was "on board", "aligned" and "understand what we're signing up for".
"I'm not going to talk about timing, as you know," he said.
He said the reason negotiations were still ongoing was because there was a "slow recount".
There have only been recounts for three electorate seats, but Luxon has in the past criticised the official count of votes which took three weeks after election day and includes the counting of special votes as well as an audit of all votes.
"We've made a lot of progress, we're going through all the detail of our respective manifestos. We want to that make sure we do this right.
"We are making great progress, we're in the final stages, but today is a day where we're going to spend this morning with the National team just processing our conversations from yesterday."
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