I'm from NZ... To form a government, the party with the most votes, or a coalition of parties which collectively holds a majority petition the governor general

I'm from NZ... To form a government, the party with the most votes, or a coalition of parties which collectively holds a majority petition the governor general. For a single party this is quite straightforward. To form a coalition the member parties agree on a 'Confidence and supply agreement" This is basically a statement that in the event of a vote of no-confidence, all of the coalitions members will support the coalition, and also a broad agreement on the budget. Getting an agreement on confidence usually involves a certain amount of horse trading about ministerial and vice ministerial positions. Likewise, the agreement on supply will probably involve some intense budget and joint-policy negotiations. If you had a parliament of 101 seats, split into an opposition of 50 seats, and a government of 51, itself made up of a large party (48 seats) and a small party (3 seats) what you will probably see is the small party only has the tiniest influence on the coalition agreement. They probably traded everything else to get their senior member a ministerial position.