00:00We've got to go back to the 1980s for the last time the Liberals and the Nationals split
00:06from their formal coalition.
00:08That was the infamous Joe for PM campaign.
00:11In the end, the coalition lost and Labor's Bob Hawke prevailed.
00:15But here we are again, about 40 years later.
00:18And we understand, Ros, that the main sticking point was over the coalition agreement.
00:22Now, this is a secret pact that is signed between the leaders of the National and the
00:27Liberal Party in both opposition but mainly in government.
00:30But because it's so secret, few people have actually cited it.
00:34And so we understand the contents of that agreement tend to be the carve-up of front bench positions.
00:39So how many cabinet and outer ministry positions each of the two coalition partners gets rarely
00:46does it involve policies.
00:48But that, this time around, has been the sticking point.
00:51So in the last term of government, the Nationals and the Liberals, so the coalition together,
00:55basically endorsed four key national policies.
00:58One, the adoption of nuclear power in Australia.
01:01Two, the ability to forcibly break up supermarkets, abusing their market power.
01:07The third was for a $20 billion regional future fund.
01:12And the fourth, we understand, to be around the universal service obligations, which governs
01:17telecommunications coverage across the country.
01:20David Littleproud insisted that those four policies be written into the coalition agreement.
01:26Susan Lee rejected that.
01:28It's pretty unconventional, we understand, for policies to be embedded in a three-year-long
01:33agreement, particularly because it's the party rooms that set policies.
01:36And also policies can change.
01:38And so for the Liberal Party, that was seen as a red line.
01:42Now, we also understand that there was another, I suppose, point of disagreement.
01:48And that is that the Nationals leader was trying to carve out a guarantee that the shadow cabinet
01:56would not be bound by cabinet solidarity, which means that even if you're in shadow cabinet,
02:01you would be allowed to vote against coalition positions.
02:04At the moment, that is a power that's given to backbenchers, but certainly not frontbenchers.
02:09So we understand that was yet another sticking point.
02:13But if we're to use kind of break-up language, I think David Littleproud was trying to insist
02:17today that this is a break, it's not a break-up.
02:20Here's what he told reporters.
02:21I'm still there and the door is still open, but you need the time and space to know who
02:28you are and what you want to be and know, with clarity, who we are and that I give you
02:33that commitment.
02:33I don't intend to be a drag on the vote of the Liberal Party like I wasn't in this election.
02:38I intend to make sure that our party works constructively, but at this point and this
02:42juncture, for the betterment of a coalition going forward, it's time to have a break.
02:47So that was David Littleproud there.
02:49Listen to the Nationals' Senate leader.
02:52I'm not sure if she'll maintain that position now that the Nationals are no longer the opposition,
02:56but Bridget McKenzie was a little more forthright about apportioning blame for this decision
03:02today.
03:02A reasonable request was put to a trusted partner and it was refused.
03:10Policies that we had fought for, that only a few weeks ago we fought an election on.
03:17Policies that, in the main, rural and regional Australia backed.
03:24They are, obviously, divestiture powers.
03:26So, Jane, what are the Liberals saying about this?
03:30Yeah, I've spoken to a couple of Liberals and, surprisingly, they're actually pretty
03:34excited about it.
03:35So, I mean, I think it's really important to note at this point that there is no way
03:38that the Liberals and the Nationals, on the numbers as they stand, can form government without
03:43each other.
03:44They need each other.
03:45It's a symbiotic relationship.
03:46The coalition, you know, wins government as a coalition, not as single parties.
03:52And so, I think both sides very much know that.
03:54But given the size of the defeat, the scale of the defeat, within the Liberal Party, there's
03:59some optimism that this actually might give them a chance to start carving out their own
04:03identity, particularly in outer suburban and regional areas.
04:07But what was interesting to me was the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, there offering up the
04:12suggestion that he might have been a drag on the Liberal vote.
04:16Well, we know that the Liberals have been wiped out from inner city seats and from a lot of
04:20suburban seats across the country.
04:22They've gone backwards at two elections now.
04:25And some of the policies that have been challenging to sell have been the nuclear power policy, which
04:29was pushed by the National Party.
04:31And also, I guess, some concerns in the electorate, if you're a Liberal voter, that the Nationals'
04:37party room is kind of, well, it's not totally united on net zero by 2050.
04:42So, I think one Liberal said to me, you know, this is exciting.
04:46It will shake things up over the next couple of years as both parties carve out their own
04:50identity, figure out their policies, work out what went wrong and, you know, how to fix
04:55it.
04:55But it is going to be challenging at some point for the two to come back together to actually
04:59figure out how, you know, they present two voters at the next election.
05:04David Littleproud was suggesting that the Nationals might go it alone, but that is difficult to
05:08see just on the numbers themselves.
05:10Former Nationals leader, Michael McCormack, told reporters a bit earlier that he hoped
05:15this was only a temporary break.
05:19A week is a long time in politics.
05:20Three years is an eternity.
05:22And we may well get back into a coalition arrangement before the next election.
05:28I do hope so.
05:29As David Littleproud has said this morning, he hopes it's only a temporary break.
05:32He's been very reasonable.
05:35He's gone to these negotiations in good faith.
05:38And I believe Susan Lee has too.
05:40So what does this mean for Parliament then, Jane?
05:43Are the Nationals still part of the opposition?
05:45Well, it's really interesting because I was actually, we're all wondering the same thing when
05:50this happened.
05:50And I actually spoke to the clerks here at Parliament House and they were all trying to
05:54figure out, because it hasn't happened in so long.
05:57But as we understand it, the party with the second, or the party with the second greatest
06:01number of seats, the Liberal Party, will be the official party of opposition now.
06:05And it actually comes with a monetary benefit.
06:07It means that all of the shadow ministry positions, there are about 30 of them, will be held by
06:13Liberals unless there's, you know, a separate agreement that's made.
06:17And those members sitting in the shadow ministry get about a 25% loading on top of their base
06:23salaries.
06:24So Nationals pay will go backwards because of this decision.
06:28And then the other issue is staffing allocations, which really comes down to, well, at the behest
06:33of the Prime Minister, whether the Nationals leader or the Nationals party will get
06:37any more than the kind of baseline staffing.
06:40So we are entering a new and different era, Ros.
06:43We'll see how it all works out.
06:45But, you know, a lot is changing as of today.
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