00:00It's been a week of developments on this, will they, won't they get back together.
00:06The latest is that the Liberal Party will hold another meeting, the second since this
00:12agreement to restart negotiations.
00:15Today, it will be held online at 1pm today, this meeting of the Liberal Party room, where
00:21they will discuss this list of four policy demands from their former coalition partner
00:27in the Nationals.
00:29Those policies are nuclear energy, the $20 billion regional future fund, the divestiture
00:38powers for supermarkets, as well as improved phone and internet services in rural and regional
00:46Australia.
00:47The Liberal Party will today consider each of those four policies, and if they can reach
00:52an agreement as to whether they will back those, which is what the National Party has
00:58been calling for, and if they can't reach an agreement today on those four areas, or some
01:03of them, then they will decide on a process about how to continue those discussions going
01:09forward.
01:10Both parties are keen to see these negotiations progress and want a resolution sooner rather
01:18than later, as long as they can both achieve what they want.
01:23In terms of how this process has unfolded, on Tuesday, we saw this decision from the Nationals
01:29to part ways with the Liberal Party.
01:33Then yesterday, this agreement to restart those negotiations.
01:37There's been a lot of contributions as to how this process has unfolded.
01:42Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has also added his words to that, speaking to the Insiders
01:48podcast.
01:49I think this holding a gun to the Liberal Party's head, which is what the Nats are doing, is
01:56really, really unwise.
01:58It's stupid politically, because if Susan Lee agrees to it, then people will say, there you
02:04go again, the Liberals are doing, you know, the tail's wagging the dog, the Liberals are doing
02:09the Nationals bidding.
02:10There's a lot of disquiet within both parties about this process and how the other side
02:18of the equation has managed it.
02:21Both leaders trying to frame this agreement to at least progress those discussions as a
02:28win for them and pointing the blame or the fact that it's suggesting that the other side
02:34of the equation has been the one to offer concessions here, regardless of the outcome.
02:40And it looks likely that there will be an agreement to do with nuclear policy in less changes
02:46than what was proposed before the election, but the agreement to remove the moratorium on
02:52nuclear power.
02:54Regardless of that, though, both leaders won't be able to, neither leader will be able to emerge
03:01unscathed from this.
03:04Thank you very much.
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