Littleproud’s Nationals split with Sussan Ley’s Liberal Party; won’t enter new agreement

A Liberal source, close to the negotiations but not authorised to speak publicly, said the agreement also fell over because the Nationals had requested that their shadow cabinet ministers be allowed to vote against shadow cabinet positions.

Littleproud and Ley spent the past week negotiating, including in Albury, where Ley had travelled to spend time with her mother, who died on Saturday. Littleproud said he and Ley would continue to meet regularly, and insisted there was no malice in the decision.

“We at some point will [be] trying to get back together to make sure we give a cogent argument to the Australian people about an alternative to Anthony Albanese,” he said.

“My commitment to her, as hers was to mine, is hopefully before the next election.”

Deputy Nationals leader Kevin Hogan described the relationship as that of a couple who had broken up but hoped to get back together. “Very often, more often than not, you get back together and join back together with clearer clarity and focus on what the relationship was about and, when you get back together, how it is going to work even better,” he said.

“I think that it is really important for the Coalition that that happen. We are always best as a country with a strong Coalition.”

The split is set to leave the Liberals with 28 lower house seats and the Nationals with 15, to the Labor government’s 94 MPs. Both opposition parties will appoint their own spokespeople on policy issues, but the Liberals as the bigger group will remain the opposition for parliamentary purposes.

Nationals MPs, as members of the junior party, will lose benefits such as higher salaries that come from shadow ministry positions. “This was not about the number of positions we might receive, this was about the principles,” Littleproud said.

A Coalition split was raised in the immediate aftermath of the May 3 election, when the Nationals fared better than the Liberals: the regional party kept all their seats except for Calare, which is held by independent Andrew Gee, who moved from the Nationals to the crossbench over the Voice referendum.

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The Liberal Party, on the other hand, lost more than a dozen seats in its worst defeat since the party was founded. It will hold as few as nine of the country’s 88 metropolitan electorates, triggering a crisis about its purpose and path forward.

Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie said the party was committed to keeping the four policies it had promised constituents at the election just three weeks ago.

“We’ve fought hard for these wins. We want to build on those policies to take to the next election, not have to re-prosecute them as part of a newly [constituted] Coalition. That’s why we’ve left the Coalition,” she said.

She said the Nationals had always offered to work with anyone who helped it further regional interests.

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“Now, it’s no secret that rural and regional Australians vote conservatively and typically for the Liberal or the National Party. I don’t see that changing, and so we tend to have a natural harmony, obviously, with centre-right parties,” she said.

“But that won’t preclude us from taking a pragmatic and practical approach to policy solutions that benefit our people.”

Asked whether the break could be permanent, she said: “That’s a matter for the Liberal Party. We’ve made it clear that we believe our nation’s best interests are best served by a strong and stable Coalition.”

The Coalition last split in 1987, primarily due to the actions of then-Queensland National Party premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Bjelke-Petersen launched a “Joh for PM” campaign, prompting a formal split between the parties before the Coalition reformed after Labor’s election victory later that year.

More to come

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