Nationals’ leader David Littleproud (centre) and leadership team, Bridget McKenzie and Kevin Hogan. Photo: Bridget McKenzie.
The juvenile, dummy-spit move from the Nationals on Tuesday (20 May) has shown the whole country why they have always been the junior party of the Coalition.
They’re acting like kids, and spoilt ones at that.
They obviously see it differently, but walking away from an agreement with the Liberal Party in the dramatic fashion they just have reeks of political cynicism and a strategy destined to backfire.
The Nats came out early with the news and talked ‘passionately’ of policy positions they couldn’t get agreement on; kept repeating the terms “a principled stand” and “leaving a legacy”.
Yet these policies were roundly rejected by the voters at the 3 May federal election, particularly on nuclear energy.
When Liberal leader Sussan Ley emerged a few hours later to explain that her, more senior, party had not rejected the Nationals’ policy requests at all, it exposed Nats’ leader David Littleproud’s doublespeak on the issue.
“As was explained to the Nationals, the Liberal Party’s review of election policies was not an indication that any one of them would be abandoned, nor that every single one would be adopted,” Ms Ley said.
“We offered to work constructively with the Nationals, respecting the party’s deeply held views on these issues.
“We asked the National Party to work constructively with us, respecting our internal processes.”
Ms Ley confirmed that the Nationals wouldn’t even agree on the need for shadow cabinet solidarity.
It seems like the Nationals had their pre-planned answer to the future of the Coalition before the question was even asked.
They wanted to chuck a big statement tantrum.
When it boils down to it, however, a coalition isn’t really worth its salt unless it’s in government.
But from the Nationals’ point of view, this could be much more about being in Opposition and who has earned the right to claim top ranking.
There’s no doubt about who’s in charge of the Opposition benches as far as Ms Ley is concerned.
“The Liberal Party is the official Opposition in the parliament,” she said.
“A new shadow ministry will be drawn from the Liberals in the upcoming days, and obviously I will be saying more about that … I have enormous talent in the Liberal Party party room and the shadow ministers that I appoint from that party room will be well-equipped and incredibly capable to take the fight up to Labor right up until the next election.”
Ms Ley (who is not only the first woman to lead the federal Liberal Party, but also the first female Leader of the Opposition) can safely make that statement because the Libs have more representation in the House of Representatives than do the Nats.
The Nationals’ vote might have held up better than the Liberals’, but they still have fewer MPs in the House of Representatives.
But that’s where the Nationals might (just might) be having other thoughts.
All it would take is for the Nationals to convince fewer than 10 regional/rural-based Liberal Party Lower House MPs to defect to them, and the junior party would suddenly have the greater representation – and with it a more credible claim on seniority.
As far-fetched as that might sound, Region has obtained a list that’s already been made up of such Liberal MPs the Nationals want to target.
Some of those Liberal MPs are holding former National seats anyway, so it shouldn’t be that hard, right?
When Mr Littleproud laughed off the suggestion that this move could be all about creating a path to his becoming Prime Minister, he might have only been half joking when he said there would be no such push.
Regardless, he was 100 per cent right, because he’s never going to be the PM.
Sussan Ley showed much more dignity and leadership in explaining the formal rift than did any of the Nationals’ leadership team.
Ms Ley and Mr Littleproud spoke of each other in terms of respect, but this just feels like a stunt from the Nationals.
The 80-year-old Coalition has split three times before, and they always kiss and make up.
They will this time too, but what has just gone down has given Labor an even greater win than it already had from the election.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers explained it this way: “This is a nuclear meltdown in the Coalition. The splits in the former Coalition are so deep and so personal that they can’t be resolved.”
He added: “It’s hard to see how Australians can take them seriously when they don’t even take each other seriously.
“They tried to divide the Australian community in the election campaign, and they ended up dividing themselves.”
Original Article published by Chris Johnson on Region Canberra.
