Nau mai, haere mai.

As omens go, Winston Peters’ claim that he failed to reply to a text from David Seymour because it felt “fake” doesn’t bode particularly well for the government formation process now under way.

One might have thought the parties seeking a governing arrangement might have had back channels already open for staffers to coordinate timetables and organise meetings – or at least verify the authenticity of a mobile phone number.

Still, as a pre-negotiation tactic it was vintage Peters. Now in the box seat as kingmaker after final election results sank the chances of a simple National-ACT deal, the veteran campaigner will likely be a handful for both other party leaders.

As Richard Shaw wrote this week, the last time NZ First put National in office (after the first MMP election in 1996), it took two months of negotiations and produced the most detailed coalition agreement the country has seen.

Back then, Peters was dealing with two political peers in National’s Jim Bolger and Labour’s Helen Clark. That is far from the case now, as Shaw points out: “Indeed, the last time Peters sat down to hammer out a deal with the National Party, Luxon was just three years into his time at Unilever and Seymour was 13 years old.”

In the meantime, there is and will be plenty more to read here, including this urgent appeal for an end to mixed-gender wards in our hospitals on the grounds the practice is unsafe and unethical. Until next week, mā te wā.