A group of Nationals senators who split with the Liberals to vote against hate speech laws are expected to lose their positions in Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s shadow cabinet.
Senior Nationals senators Bridget McKenzie, Ross Cadell and Susan McDonald, as well as backbencher Matt Canavan, voted against Labor’s hate crimes bill in the Senate on Tuesday night.
The move contradicted a party room meeting on Sunday landing on voting in favour of the laws after the coalition had committed to working with Anthony Albanese in response to the December 14 Bondi terrorist attack.
But just 20 minutes before voting started on the legislation in the Senate, Nationals leader David Littleproud released a statement announcing his party would vote against the bill if amendments guaranteeing greater protections against unintended consequences on freedom of speech failed to succeed.
Senator Cadell said he held real fears about the legislation and acknowledged his break with shadow cabinet solidarity.
“I am willing to take the consequences of my actions,” he told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
“I think that is fair. It’s what I should do. I can’t do the crime if I’m not prepared to do the time.
“If more people stood up for what they believe … and didn’t play the game, this would be a better place. Australia would be a better country.”
Politicians in the shadow cabinet are required to stick to the position agreed to by the frontbench.
Senator McKenzie, leader of the Nationals in the upper house, said she was “very aware” of the conventions of parliament when pressed if her position was untenable.
“I will be doing what I’ve always done is trying to do my very best to conduct my career here with integrity,” she told Sky News.
The Liberals voted for the hate crimes bill in the lower house on Tuesday, while most in the rural party abstained.
The sole Nationals MP who voted in favour of the legislation, Michael McCormack, said he did so because he didn’t want to “let the perfect be the enemy of the good”.
But he respected the decision of his Senate colleagues to vote against the bill after they failed to get the amendments up.
“There were a lot of conventions that were broken this week,” Mr McCormack told AAP.
There was no backbench meeting to discuss the bill and the coalition joint party room meeting on Sunday had not seen the final draft legislation because it had not yet been completed, he said.
“If we want to talk about convention we also have to look at those conventions.”
It marks another flashpoint for Ms Ley’s leadership, after her authority was previously tested over the coalition’s climate policy.
Conservative Liberals Andrew Hastie and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price resigned from shadow cabinet in 2025 while Ms Ley has previously found herself at odds with Nationals leader David Littleproud over net zero policy.
Deputy Leader Ted O’Brien, a key lieutenant for Ms Ley, and mooted leadership rival Angus Taylor did not vote with the rest of the Liberals on the hate speech laws, instead abstaining from the vote.
Ms Ley was contacted for comment.
The first two major polls of the year since the Bondi massacre showed One Nation nipping at the heels of the coalition.
A Newspoll, conducted for The Australian, found Pauline Hanson’s party surpassed the coalition’s primary vote by a slight margin.
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