The end of the federal coalition won’t stop the Nationals from working with their ex-political partner to target their common enemy – a rampant Labor government.
Nationals leader David Littleproud has pulled the party out of coalition with the Liberals for the first time in almost 40 years, citing policy disagreements following an election drubbing.
But Mr Littleproud also said he won’t be “unrealistic or stupid” and plans to work with the Liberals to target the federal government, which has a strong majority.
“The enemy is still Labor,” he told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
“This isn’t a split of the coalition in anger or vengeance, this is one on principle and a time for Liberal Party rediscovery.
“I want them to succeed and I want us to succeed but there are principles that we can’t walk away from.”
Leaders of both the Liberals and the Nationals insist the “door is open” to discussions and possible reunification ahead of the next federal election.
But until then, neither party has a path to power in their own right, effectively smoothing the road for the government.
Former Liberal prime minister John Howard said getting the coalition back together was “more important than anything else” as a prolonged separation would solidify policy differences, making them harder to resolve.
Though the decision to pull out of the coalition was not unanimous within the Nationals’ party room, Mr Littleproud said he needed to stand up for the voters who sent him and his colleagues to parliament.
“It’s a simple game of arithmetic – as John Howard has always said – but to get that arithmetic in your column, you actually have to stand for something and you have to protect and serve the people who put you here,” he told Sky News.
The party leader notified Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of the coalition’s split on Tuesday and will meet with him in the coming days to work through the impact on the Nationals’ new, and reduced, status in parliament.
Seven Nationals, including Mr Littleproud, will take a haircut worth tens of thousands of dollars from their base salary rates of about $230,000 after walking away from leadership positions in a future shadow cabinet.
Five are actively taking pay cuts, while the other two will forego promotions.
The two parties are expected to get back together in the long term as pressure will build when the next election looms, political expert Henry Maher told AAP.
Former Queensland Legislative Assembly speaker John Mickel and former WA Liberal premier Colin Barnett have gone further, calling for a formal amalgamation at a federal level to solve the parties’ problems.
It could model the Liberal-National Party merger in Queensland in 2008, Mr Mickel said, adding it would stop competition between the two in some federal seats such as Bullwinkel in Western Australia, where they ran against each other.
The split comes after Mr Littleproud and Liberal leader Sussan Ley failed to reach an agreement on four key policies.
The Nationals remain committed to nuclear energy, divestiture powers to pressure big supermarkets against anti-competitive behaviour and a regional investment fund which the coalition took to the last election.
Senior Liberal James Paterson hoped the coalition could re-form before the next election.
“It’s not in the Liberal Party’s interest for us to be fighting the National Party… It’s not in the National Party’s interest to find any new political opponents,” he told FIVEAA radio.
“We already have to fight the Labor Party, the Greens, and the teals, we are not looking for any other political opponents.”
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