National and Liberal backroom push to reunite parties, just a day after divorce

Australia Broadcast Center

21-05-2025

Just a day after they filed for divorce, there is a backroom push underway to get the Liberals and Nationals back together.
Senior Nationals MP Darren Chester has told the ABC he is talking with colleagues "across the political divide" about trying to find a way for the two parties to reunite within weeks.
Mr Chester is not part of the Nationals leadership team but previously sat in the former Coalition government's cabinet.
"My concern is that we will be giving Labor a free pass if we go back to parliament some time in the next month or so as two divided parties," he said.
"We owe it to our supporters to have another crack at forming a coalition in the interests of providing a strong and stable opposition … if we want to deliver for regional Australia as Nationals, we need to be in government."
Mr Chester said he still supported all policy positions advocated by the Nationals.
But he said former Liberal prime minister John Howard had been right to raise concerns about the Coalition's split.
The Nationals leadership team of David Littleproud, Kevin Hogan and Bridget McKenzie were feeling buoyant on Tuesday night after orchestrating one of the most monumental moments in recent political history.
They sat in Mr Littleproud's office, reflecting on the day over a beef burger. Senator McKenzie had no regrets.
"It's about next steps and about being able to speak about legislation and policy on behalf of regional Australians in a very unconstrained way that affects our values. It's a huge opportunity for us," she told the ABC.
Last Wednesday, Mr Littleproud travelled with the party's federal director Ben Hindmarsh to Albury, to meet with Liberal leader Sussan Ley the following day.
He had made the journey because her mother was terminally ill and the pair needed to discuss the Coalition agreement.
She had put a deadline on the shadow cabinet announcement of Sunday.
At the meeting, Mr Littleproud told her the Nationals wanted guaranteed support for four key policy areas: nuclear, a $20 billion regional Australia future fund, better phone coverage in the bush, and supermarket divestiture powers.
But Ms Ley refused to give an iron-clad commitment, arguing every policy would be on the table as part of the Liberal Party's impending election review.
As one Nationals MP put it: "She told him to shove it up his jumper."
Mr Littleproud drove back to Canberra and spoke with his leadership team. They arranged a party-room meeting via Microsoft Teams for the following morning — on Friday, at 8:30am.
At that virtual hook-up, he told colleagues that the policies he had argued for would be "wiped" and "part of a review".
"They didn't even get as far as talking about shadow cabinet positions," one Nationals source said.
There was scepticism that those policies would resurface after the Liberals' review.
Over the weekend, Mr Hindmarsh's staff wrote to Ms Ley's office, requesting again that she commit to honouring the Nationals' policies.
The written response, Nationals say, did anything but.
The response said that all sorts of policies would be up for review.
"That argument didn't slide," another Nationals source told the ABC.
By Tuesday the Nats were meeting again — also via Teams — and the mood to blow up the Coalition had boldened.
MPs and senators voted in solidarity on leaving the Coalition, despite there being some opposition.
The Nationals, however, publicly banded together and came out in force — supporting Mr Littleproud's shock announcement.
Ley, who had been given a 30-minute heads-up by the Nationals leader, told reporters that afternoon that the sticking point was the Nationals desire for their shadow cabinet ministers to be able to speak out freely against Coalition policy.
But Nationals MPs and senators have disputed that, with one describing it as "total bullshit".
Despite the unified front, there has been concern from some internally about the split.
On Tuesday, a Nationals MP, who did not want to be named, said they thought the move had not been properly thought through by the party's leadership team.
"I'm glad they're not running our army because in a war we'd have no ammunition," they said.