Coalition crisis: Nothing ruled out for mooted reunion
The leader of the Nationals won’t pre-empt a meeting with his former coalition partner as MPs hope for a speedy end to the chaotic break-up.
Nationals leader David Littleproud has refused to publicly pre-empt a meeting with Liberal counterpart Sussan Ley, who is confident the coalition can reunite within days.
Ley has left the door open to softening her demands for the Nationals in a bid to end the messy political divorce when the former allies meet on Wednesday.
Despite a number of MPs from the two conservative parties expressing hope they will get back together, the ex-coalition partners were unable to agree on terms of their reunion on Monday night.
“The coalition can re-form this week with conditions that are supported by the overlying majority of my party room,” Ley told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday morning.
The Nationals needed to agree that shadow cabinet solidarity was mandatory and the joint opposition party room had primacy over any individual party’s wishes, the Liberal leader said.
Three senators who crossed the floor over contentious hate crime laws in January faced ongoing consequences, Ley added.
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While refusing to predict the outcome of the latest meeting or what conditions he would accept, Mr Littleproud backed his senators Bridget McKenzie, Susan McDonald and Ross Cadell.
“I’m not going to rule anything in or out,” Littleproud said.
“Three of my senators were sacked when they shouldn’t have been, and unless that was rectified, we couldn’t work with them.”
Ley accepted the trio’s resignations from shadow cabinet after they went against Liberal colleagues during the hate crime vote.
While shadow cabinet – a group of the most senior Liberal and Nationals MPs – agreed to back the legislation, the rural party’s MPs subsequently decided to move against the laws in a breach of convention.
Asked if there was any room to negotiate on her demands, which include suspending the trio of Nationals frontbenchers from their roles for six months, Ley reiterated that they were supported by the vast majority of Liberal MPs.
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But she said she wouldn’t discuss any details that could undermine negotiations with the Nationals.
Ley is threatening to replace the three former frontbenchers with Liberals if the dispute isn’t resolved by Monday, in a move insiders believe would cement the coalition split.
The ongoing infighting threatens to drive voters away from the Nationals and into the arms of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, a leading pollster warns.
A number of recent polls have shown public support for One Nation surpassing the coalition for the first time.
Conservative, working-class voters who had experienced economic decline were flocking to the anti-immigration party out of disillusionment, Redbridge Group director and former Victorian Labor strategist Kos Samaras said.
“The point is revenge, cultural and political revenge,” Samaras said.
Former National-turned-One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce cited his defection to the right-wing party as contributing to its surge in support.
“I’m not going to go with faux modesty, I think I’m part of it,” he told ABC TV.
“It gives people licence that they have the capacity to, go to dinner and say, ‘actually I’m a One Nation voter’.”
But Littleproud said he was not fazed about the prospect of One Nation coming for Nationals seats, noting they have been trying to do so for decades.
A Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll, published on Sunday, showed support for One Nation had jumped to 26 per cent, well above the former coalition’s 19 per cent primary vote.
Based on the polls, the Nationals risked losing all of their seats in regional NSW and Queensland, where One Nation was expected to perform particularly well, Samaras said.
-with AAP
