Winston Peters has raised hopes of a swift end to government coalition talks once election results in New Zealand are finalised.
The 20-day vote counting process will come to an end on Friday, when the Electoral Commission ratifies results for the October 14 poll.
The three parties in the mix for government formation - National, ACT and Mr Peters' NZ First - have used the time to "relationship build", according to incoming prime minister Chris Luxon.
In his first interview since election weekend, Mr Peters told fringe online radio station The Platform that Mr Luxon had placed a veil of secrecy on the talks.
"There's a proscription on this matter at the moment because we're all waiting around for the third of November to know exactly what it is we're dealing with," he said.
"This discussion has got a proscription around it and I will not be disclosing things that I should not be disclosing ... if you want to move forward and gain people's confidence, you stick to your word.
"There are talks. There are meetings between political parties, but they all have this one qualification: we have not yet got the detail, numeric detail, that's required to have a ... discussion that leads to finality."
While it is clear Kiwis have swung to the right tossing out the Labour government, the final tally will show whether the centre-right National party can govern in a two or three party coalition.
National's preferred option is to govern with just the right-wing ACT party.
The preliminary count shows the two parties have 61 of the 121 seats between them.
Should the final count erode their slim majority, waiting in the wings is Mr Peters' populist New Zealand First party.
Mr Peters, the 78-year-old veteran maverick of Kiwi politics, has held a key role in post-election talks three times before, and is well-known for extracting maximum leverage for his party in coalition talks.
On the last occasion, in 2017, he agreed to a government with Jacinda Ardern's Labour which saw NZ First claim four cabinet seats and a raft of policy concessions - including a $NZ3 billion ($A2.75 billion) regional projects fund.
Previous negotiations involving Mr Peters have also lasted weeks as parties thrashed out their differences and agreements.
Time time around, Mr Peters gave Kiwis hope it could be sorted not long after November 3, allowing New Zealand to be represented politically at key international engagements.
"It could be done much more quickly than people think," he said.
"You've got the Pacific Islands Forum, which is on the sixth to the 10th of November. That's not very long away. And then the 15th to 17th, you've got APEC in San Francisco.
"You might think that that's not important but it is for a country like New Zealand because a small country like ours needs to be there."
The three-week count of votes has frustrated some Kiwis, especially those on the right, who are eager for Mr Luxon's government to take office and get on with implementing its policy platform.
The Electoral Commission uses the time to manually count votes twice, add postal and overseas votes - which amount to roughly 20 per cent of ballots - and cross-checks Kiwis who enrol on election day.
Mr Peters said it should be done faster "in this computerised age".
