National expects confidential coalition talks, Peters not likely to negotiate until special votes counted

National's deputy leader Nicola Willis says she expects coalition talks to be confidential and respectful.

Party leader Christopher Luxon said he had begun the process of forming a government but on Monday refused to be drawn on commenting on the details of negotiations.

"We don't want this to turn into side shows and parlour games and media exposés, we want to have respectful, professional, confidential conversations," Willis told First Up.

National had a much bigger share of votes than ACT or New Zealand First which would have a bearing on how negotiations progressed, she said.

Asked by Morning Report if voters had a right to know about the process of negotiations, Willis said: "Voters absolutely have a right to know we are progressing things, that we are intent on getting a governing arrangement together efficiently and once we do that they have a right to some transparency about what that agreement looks like."

Getting a "blow-by-blow" of what was happening would not be helpful, she said.

Willis would not be drawn on who was in the National Party negotiation team and said the party would do what it was required to.

There were more than half a million special votes still to be counted.

"It's really important that we respect those votes, these aren't a small thing, every vote does matter, that's what we spend a lot of time talking about in the election campaign ... in the meantime what we can do is to be working on those relationship with those other parties and also have in place some of those transition arrangements with the current government who have moved into caretaker mode," Willis told First Up.

Asked if she was promised the finance portfolio, Willis said Luxon made clear the expectation she would be in that role.

National would have its first caucus meeting with the intake of new MPs on Tuesday.

"Which is really exciting because that's a caucus room that of course emptied out after the 2020 election and it's nice to have the reverse happening today, it will be flooded with new challenge and new people from across the country."

Misconception Winston Peters makes all the decisions - Ron Mark

A former New Zealand First MP says the party likely will not enter into any negotiations until the special votes were counted.

Former NZ First MP Ron Mark has been involved in coalition talks before and told Morning Report Winston Peters has always demonstrated that he will not enter into negotiations until he was absolutely clear, and his counterparts were clear, on what the ground was.

"No-one will know that until the final specials," Mark said.

"It could quite well be that the specials go against the norm."

There was a misconception in the media that Peters made all of the decisions, he said.

"That is absolutely nonsense. I've sat in those caucus discussions at the end of coalition talks, I've sat there and I've been in negotiations and every pre-negotiation, negotiation and post-negotiation debrief from 67 portfolios and 980 policies between National and Labour, we worked ourselves to the bone for nine solid days and then we sat down and discussed in detail what we had, everybody got a handout."

Asked whether Peters would hold a grudge that Luxon may not have spoken to him since Saturday, Mark said Peters had "the skin of a rhino and the memory of an elephant".

Mark said Peters operated on a different level of understanding of MMP than others and understood once coalition deals were done it was into FPP (first past the post).

"You have to have a clear majority in the house and you have to be strong enough and stable enough to withstand the storms that are going to come along the way in a three-year term."

He believed Peters looked long-term and that trust and stability of the parties he was working with would be key.

He would be on top of all of public comments politicians will have made, he said.