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SYDNEY — Almost six weeks after its general election, New Zealand finally has a government.
Leaders of three conservative parties announced Friday that they had reached a coalition agreement, ending weeks of closed-door negotiations and cementing the nation’s shift to the right — although it will be a modest one compared to the recent elections in Argentina and the Netherlands.
The new government will be markedly different from the previous Labour government, led for more than five years by Jacinda Ardern, when it comes to domestic issues but will keep foreign policy and international relations largely unchanged.
Christopher Luxon, whose center-right National Party won the largest share of votes in the Oct. 14 election, will be prime minister, as expected. But final election results left Luxon needing both the right-wing ACT and the populist New Zealand First parties to form a government.
For the first time since the mixed member proportional voting system began in 1996, the deputy prime minister role will be shared: New Zealand First leader Winston Peters will fill the role for the first 18 months of the government’s three-year term, and ACT leader David Seymour for the remainder.
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“[This] is a true three-party coalition government with a strong parliamentary majority and a comprehensive policy program for the next three years that will get New Zealand back on track,” Luxon said at a news conference Friday.
The announcement was a triumph for Peters, a prickly political veteran and parliamentary kingmaker who will also be foreign minister, a role he has carried out twice before. The 78-year-old is hawkish on China, something that could put New Zealand in closer step with Five Eyes partners, including the United States and Australia.
The two smaller parties will each have three ministers in Luxon’s 20-person cabinet, with the rest taken by members of the National Party.
Luxon said the government would pursue the tax cuts and anti-gang legislation he promised in his campaign. But, in a concession to Peters, the coalition would not pursue National’s plan to repeal a ban on foreigners buying residential properties in New Zealand.
In a move that will inflame race relations, the three parties said they would remove references to the “principles” of the Treaty of Waitangi, the country’s colonial-era founding document between the Victorian-era British government and the indigenous Maori people, from legislation. They also will ask Parliament to consider whether to hold a referendum to redefine its principles, which have been in place since 1840.
New Zealand’s mixed member proportional voting system makes such power-sharing arrangements the norm in the nation of 5 million, and coalition negotiations are often protracted as parties try to find common ground and divide up cabinet responsibilities.