Nationals leader David Littleproud dares Liberals to reinstate rebel senators amid leadership challenge
National leader David Littleproud has encouraged the Liberals to unite the Coalition with a leader who would restore three rebel senators to shadow ministerial positions, raising the stakes as supporters of Liberal MP Andrew Hastie back a leadership challenge.
As the bitter fallout from last week’s split in the Coalition deepened, Littleproud insisted he and his colleagues made a decision last week when three National Senators took to the floor to vote against the opposition’s shadow cabinet stance supporting Labour’s hate laws, a decision that tore the Coalition alliance apart.
But the Nationals leader did not say whether he had shouted at Ley and demanded his resignation in tense phone calls; He refused to weigh in on what he called “delusional little games” as the saga sparked new leadership speculation and galvanized right-wing Liberal MPs seeking to oppose the opposition leader.
Hastie’s supporters have begun calling calls to rally support for a challenge, but have hit a stalemate this weekend because Angus Taylor, another right-wing Liberal, also wants to run and many Liberal MPs are wary of switching to Ley because they don’t want to be seen as rewarding Littleproud or the Nationals for their behaviour.
As the collapse of the coalition destabilizes conservative politics in Australia, a resurgent Pauline Hanson has said she will no longer seek an alliance with the Nationals, a crossover party, due to complex infighting between them.
Three leading members of the National Party offered Ley his resignation last week because they had broken the tradition of shadow cabinet solidarity in voting against Labor’s bill. However, Littleproud threatened that if Ley agreed, all citizens would withdraw. He did so with the support of the Liberal leadership and the Nationals left the Coalition.
Many Liberal MPs are furious with Littleproud, but the National Party leader said on Sunday the blame for the Coalition split lies squarely with Ley. He said he was “not interested in the game of choosing the leader” and that the Liberal leadership was a matter for the opposition.
But when asked if there were any Liberal leaders who could reunite the Coalition, he told Nine’s: Today: “Anyone who is prepared to reinstate three colleagues who were dismissed for defending principles, without a proper process, will help. These were extenuating circumstances. The incident did not need to develop this way.”
The National Team leader neither confirmed nor denied the allegations that he shouted at Ley and told him to resign. “I’m not going to get into these fanciful little games. It’s just nonsense,” he told Sky News in a separate interview.
“The truth is that we wanted to be in a position to hold the Coalition together. We did nothing wrong. None of us did anything wrong and we shouldn’t be in this position.”
The collapse of the coalition comes as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party surges in the polls, creating a crisis of direction for Nationals and the Liberals as they grapple with how to stop the bleeding of voters to the right-wing minority party.
Sources from both parties say One Nation’s polling was one of the factors causing unrest at last week’s National Election, with many opting to vote against Labor’s bill. The latest poll from this imprint’s Resolve Political Monitor, published on January 18, shows the primary vote at 30 per cent for Labour, 28 per cent for the Coalition and 18 per cent for One Nation. Newspoll shows One Nation ahead of the Coalition by 22 per cent to 21 per cent.
Hanson, whose position was strengthened when lower house MP Barnaby Joyce defected to his party late last year, said on Sunday he did not intend to form any coalition with the National Party.
“I won’t decide anything, inside or outside,” he said on Sky. “[But] In my opinion, I will not go with another organization, with another party, where there will be factions, fights, infighting… People joined One Nation to support me. “They didn’t come to One Nation to support the National Party.”
Hanson said his party won up to 40 percent of the vote in some seats, but acknowledged it would be difficult for One Nation to form a government.
“I have four seats in the Senate; we have only one seat in the lower house, with Barnaby Joyce,” he said. “If we get the No. 1 vote and we get the majority of votes, the majority of seats in the lower house, then yes, we can form the government. But it’s a big ask and I’m being honest with myself and the people.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday accused the Liberals and Nationals of shifting towards the right to pursue One Nation.
“You can’t fight as a lighter version of One Nation,” he said. “People like late nights now [Nationals] Senator Ron Boswell realized: [former Liberal prime minister] John Howard understood this when he put One Nation last on the question of how to vote.
“At the last election, we saw a preference agreement between One Nation and the Coalition. As the Coalition moved to the right, we saw them getting closer and closer. And that legitimizes some of the far-right policies that One Nation has.”
At the last election, Hanson placed the Coalition second on how-to-vote cards in nearly a dozen seats, including former opposition leader Peter Dutton’s, after the Coalition favored One Nation in 57 seats.
This marked a departure from the Coalition’s previous attempts to exclude the minor party – then prime minister Howard rejected Hanson’s preferences in 1998, partly because of the firebrand’s infamous statement: Australia risks being “smothered by Asians”.
Albanese said he would respond to the rise of One Nation by continuing to highlight the damage One Nation policies would do to our national unity.
“The policy of only identifying complaints and not producing solutions is a dead end that takes the country nowhere,” he said.
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Natassia Chrysanthos is a Federal Political Correspondent. He has previously reported on immigration, health, social issues and the NDIS from Parliament House in Canberra.Connect with: excitement or email.
