Greens emerge from Labour talks with biscuits, but without an agreement

James Shaw said they are still hoping to take an agreement to members on Friday.

The Greens emerged from what they call "negotiations" and what Labour calls "talks", without an agreement but with a plate of biscuits for media.  

"We know you have a thing about biscuits," Greens co-leader James Shaw said today following the talks about a potential Government partnership with Labour.

On the talks with Labour, he said they had "made pretty good progress and we still think that we can conclude by Friday".

If there was an expectation they would be in Government, Shaw said they were, "hoping to form a Government, yes, in some way, shape or form".

"It is quite a complicated business. It took us four weeks in 2017, but of course the complicating factor was there was three parties, so we're confident we'll be able to do it a lot faster," he said. 

A spokesperson for Jacinda Ardern said "conversations continued to progress well today with talks on track to wrap up by the end of the week". 

Chris Hipkins said Labour would like to continue working with the left-wing minor party.

Yesterday, a spokesperson for Ardern said, "conversations progressed well". 

“We still haven’t' landed on a final offer,” the Green Party co-leader said.

"It’s her intention to wrap up talks by the end of this week."

Marama Davidson said they hoped to have an agreement to take to members on Friday. 

"We're getting towards the end," she said. 

They need 75 per cent support from members to join the Government in some form. 

Labour received 64 seats in the preliminary results of election 2020, enough to govern alone, and the Green Party got 10. There is still the result of the special vote to be released, making up an estimated 17 per cent of the overall vote.

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