National leader Christopher Luxon says negotiations to form a government are in the final stages.
With negotiations to form a government continuing between National, ACT and NZ First in Auckland on Thursday, Luxon said talks were progressing well.
"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 with the full ACT team yesterday afternoon - and then Winston Peters and our chiefs, we carried on again at 6pm.
"We're going through all the detail of our respective manifestos - we are making great progress, we're in the final stages."
Arriving earlier at the Cordis Hotel in Auckland, National finance spokesperson Nicola Willis refused to commit to the party's foreign buyers tax, but said the tax cut package would be "funded responsibly".
The deputy leader said her sense was also that they were in the "final stages".
"Because we are really looking at the detail of each part of the written agreement. Obviously this is a distinctive situation because there are three parties that need to come together for us to have the votes to form a government.
"We are literally going through clause by clause, sentence by sentence, [checking] is everyone happy."
She stood by her commitment to deliver tax cuts for New Zealanders but despite being asked several times refused to say it would be funded by a proposal the party campaigned on, a foreign buyers tax on houses sold for more than $2 million.
"Look, our tax cuts will be funded responsibly, there's really good agreement on that and as you will have seen before the election we went to the election with a manifesto that had a tax policy funded through eight different areas - of reprioritisation, of new revenue measures.
"We are discussing every aspect of that. I'm 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."
During the campaign, Willis had said she would resign as Finance Minister if National was unable to deliver the tax cuts they had promised, but would not make the same commitment about other aspects of the tax plan.
Chris Bishop. Photo: RNZ / Katie Scotcher
More to come...
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/502543/coalition-talks-in-final-stages-national-leader-christopher-luxon
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