New Liberal Leader Sussan Ley said she has been talking with her Nationals counterpart since last week, but insisted all policies be put on the table for review. Photo: Sussan Ley Facebook.
New Liberal leader Sussan Ley says she is disappointed that the Nationals have chosen to leave the Coalition, but says she will continue discussions with her Nationals counterpart David Littleproud and the door remains open for a reconciliation.
Speaking to media this afternoon, Ms Ley said she had been talking to Mr Littleproud since late last week in an effort to form a Shadow Cabinet, but that the Nationals had four specific policies they wanted to take forward, while she insisted on putting all policies on the table for discussion.
The four policies were a commitment to establish a $20 billion Regional Australia Future Fund; a commitment to legislate federal divestiture powers that could break up big businesses, like supermarkets, that abuse market power; a universal service obligation to guarantee mobile coverage across Australia; and a commitment to lift Australia’s ban on nuclear energy.
“The Liberal Party must respect modern Australia and represent modern Australia, and Australians sent us a clear message at the last election, and we are listening,” she said.
“The Nationals sought specific commitments on certain policies, and they’ve talked about that this morning. And our perspective is not about the individual policies themselves, but the approach that we said we would take to our party room about policies, nothing adopted and nothing abandoned.”
She said she had proposed to Mr Littleproud “in good faith” to set up a joint shadow ministry consisting of members from both parties, and that the two parties “go forward in a united way” and work separately on policies in their separate party rooms. She said she hoped the two parties could then come together and articulate those policies over the course of the next term.
“I asked the Nationals to respect those party room processes, and similarly, I would respect their attachment to the policies that they announced as very important to them,” she said.
“We offered to work constructively with the Nationals, and we asked for that respect in return. And the Nationals did not agree to that approach.
“We will take the time to get this right – we’ll listen, we’ll step up, we’ll modernise, and we will rebuild,” she said of the Liberal Party going forward.
“As the largest non-government political party, the Liberals will form the official opposition – the Liberal Party is the official opposition in the parliament.
“A new shadow ministry will be drawn from the Liberals in the coming days, and obviously I will be saying more about that at the time,” she said.
“And it is with that undertaking from my party room and with my conviction and determination to get it right with respect to policies that I had front and centre with my conversations with David.”
Ms Ley said she retained “enormous respect” for Mr Littleproud despite being disappointed the Nationals decided to leave the Coalition.
“The most important thing I want to say is this: the Nationals’ door remains open, and our door remains open, and we look forward with optimism to rejoining at some point in the future,” she said.
“And as David and I left today, we agreed that he and I would continue to meet regularly and to talk because we have much in common and we both have a big job to do to take the fight up to Labor.”
The bust-up is only the third time in the Coalition’s history that the two parties have walked away from the relationship.
In closing, Ms Ley reiterated that she wants to continue to work very closely with the Nationals, and that they want to work very closely with the Liberal Party.
“We will cooperate in the Parliament in processes, in everything that allows us to bring together the very strong areas of public policy of philosophy, but most importantly, of values that we share as we do go forward,” she said.
“And as somebody who represents rural and regional Australia, I smiled as I watched David Littleproud give his remarks in front of the picture of Tim Fischer, my predecessor in the electorate of Farrer, a National Party member, but also a very, very good friend.”
