Coalition's situationship has everyone baffled. Including themselves.

(First published in the New Daily May 23)

Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

If anyone knows what is going on in the National party, could you please stand up? Interested parties in the Nationals would love to know.

Becausem after blowing up the show on Tuesday with his own Groucho Marx “principles” (“those are my principles, and if you don’t like them, well, I have others”), David Littleproud has announced that the Coalition’s divorce is on hold.

In modern parlance, the Coalition has been reduced to a situationship.

Liberal leader Sussan Ley had been due to announce her shadow ministry on Thursday, while Littleproud was to announce the spokespeople for his little party. Both put their announcements on hold after deciding to re-enter negotiations for the new Coalition agreement.

Ask anyone inside the Nationals what happened and you’ll get different versions. They all agree that there was a meeting to decide portfolio spokespeople. That suddenly the spokespeople were told to hold their fire. That party heavyweights, current and former, had spent 48 hours pressing for calmer heads to prevail. That doubts began to creep in immediately when it became clear the response to the party room decision was not one of back, but forehead, slapping.

Party elders immediately began urging Littleproud and those pushing the split, including Victorian senator Bridget McKenzie, to reconsider. The panic button was hit as it became clear the shadow ministry was about to be announced.

“The moment Sussan announced her cabinet, it would be over for us,” one Nationals MP said.

“We weren’t coming back from that. How could you? There was no planet where the leader of the Liberal Party, especially one that is already having its own issues, would move aside members of its frontbench to make room for the recalcitrant cousins!”

McKenzie’s attempt on Wednesday night to rewrite history on the ABC’s 7.30 program, which was quickly addressed by Ley’s staff in real time, also prompted some Nationals MPs to realise they were losing ground.

McKenzie said the split was only in response to the four policy guarantees the Nationals wanted, and not the demand to freelance on cabinet solidarity. Ley’s office messaged 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson to immediately dispute McKenzie’s claims. Twice. While she was still on air.

“Bridget did what Bridget does and they didn’t let that stand. That was a signal,” another Nationals MP said.

Many within the party and its supporters were uncomfortable with how Littleproud handled the negotiations. He barely gave Ley half an hour before announcing his party was walking away. He did it just days after her mother died, which rubbed old school Nationals and Country Party supporters the wrong way. And the attempted show of dominance came immediately after the Liberals elected their first woman leader.

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“They elect a woman and then we announce we are leaving,” another Nationals MP said. “Then we wonder why people think we are dinosaurs”.

The pause in open hostilities is nowhere near settled. Ley has to negotiate with her own party room over policies. The Nationals have had a very public dummy spit with no way of saving face.

The Labor government has been deliberately quiet to allow the mess to play out as uninterrupted as possible, with Jim Chalmers making an appearance to welcome Tuesday’s rate cut (“the juxtaposition could not be more obvious,” one Labor MP all but gloated. “Grown-up government addressing real issues and then a rabble”) but most other government media has been conducted through written statement and set radio pieces.

“Why interrupt the meltdown?” a Labor MP quipped.

Amid Thursday’s confusion, Anthony Albanese announced he had asked for parliament to be brought back on July 22.

“The government is humbled by the support of the Australian people,” he said in a statement.

“I look forward to advancing the government’s legislative agenda over the coming parliamentary term. The reform program we took to the election was shaped by the priorities of the Australian people. We look forward to continuing the work of building Australia’s future.”

All while the Nationals and Liberal leaderships were left to duke it out for audience entertainment on commercial TV, where deputy Liberal leader Ted O’Brien was goaded into telling McKenzie “I still love you, Bridge.”

But that is when the Nationals were allegedly still standing on “principles”.

“If anyone could tell us what this is about, I think we would all be very grateful,” a party elder said.

With Coalition heavyweights pushing for the parties to officially reunify “as soon as possible” to “just move on and start rebuilding”, the Nationals leadership is looking for any way to save face.
Asked why any of it happened in the first place, several Nationals identities pointed to “ego”, both of Littleproud and McKenzie – and a lack of willingness to listen to other voices.

“I think they really thought they were doing something. And all they’ve done is get a bunch of egg on everyone’s faces and set everything even further back,” another party elder said.

Questions are already being raised about Littleproud’s leadership, although party members concede there is no real challenger. Plus, Littleproud, McKenzie and Nationals deputy Kevin Hogan don’t seem to think they have done anything wrong.

The cooling of open hostilities is also not expected to solve any of the underlying issues within the Coalition. But it has exposed just how fraught the link between the two parties is.

Party members recognise neither can ever return to government without the other. But that doesn’t mean happy families.

“This is now just about egos and saving face,” another party identity said.

“No one wins that.”