The term “mutually assured destruction” is getting a workout in Liberal circles in the wake of the Nationals walking away from the Coalition on Tuesday.

“It is disastrous … I think it harms both of us,” a senior Liberal figure tells The Saturday Paper.

“If we end up having three-cornered contests against each other, if we run against them in seats where they’re under challenge from teals, that could contribute to them losing those seats to the teals.

“And if they do the same to us, they will do the same for us, but it’ll be very hard to avoid three-cornered contests without a Coalition agreement, and Bridget McKenzie and Ross Cadell’s Senate careers will be over because there’ll be no joint Senate tickets and they have no hope of getting elected in their own right to the Senate.”

The Nationals’ decision to walk away from the Coalition for the first time in 38 years was in part triggered by anger over Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s defection and a 24-year-old grudge over Liberal leader Sussan Ley taking the seat of Farrer from the party. A Liberal MP describes the Nationals’ view of Ley like this: “That’s one thing they can never forgive and they’ve been at loggerheads for years.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic9G6MvPtQM&ab_channel=TheSaturdayPaper 

Going in to Coalition negotiations, the Nationals were particularly emboldened by the fact they held their lower house seats at the election and lost only one Senate spot – although it was their deputy leader, Perin Davey.

“The people gave us a strong message in the election to stand up for something, to stand up for them,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told Channel Nine’s Today show this week.

“And I’m proud of my party room. They’re going to stand up for the people who sent them here.”

Just two days later, on Thursday, the parties were trying to repair the rift, delaying the announcement of their respective front benches.

Littleproud stressed he was re-entering Coalition negotiations and acting in “good faith”.

“I don’t know how much more principled we can be. I have a senator standing beside me that is prepared to put her job on the line because she believes in this,” he said, referring to Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie.

“I have people in my party room who are prepared to take a pay cut because we believe in this. We’re not doing this for show. We’re doing this because we are convicted about the people that we represent. And I would have thought that that is a damn good thing.”

Many in the Liberal party room discovered that the Coalition had been dissolved by watching the announcement on television. Some MPs say they had “inklings” after the election loss, however, noting the strong rhetoric on nuclear power and that some Nationals were publicly staking claims.

The Nationals say they have formed a “principled” position to sit alone and want guarantees from the Liberal Party on four favoured policy positions: nuclear power, the $20 billion regional future fund, universal phone service and divestiture powers to break up the big supermarkets.

Littleproud says the Nationals do not want to have to fight for positions achieved over the past three years. “We should be continuing to look forward.”

Ley and her deputy, Ted O’Brien, took a different view, saying the election result meant the party should review its unpopular policy positions.

“We are not saying any policy is out or gone. Nor are we saying that any policy is accepted and locked in,” O’Brien told the ABC’s 7.30 a week ago, insisting the Liberals would take their time to listen with “big ears”.

The timing of the split has shocked some in the Liberal Party, coming as Ley is grieving the death of her mother.

“I think them pushing that this week in particular, as Sussan has lost her mother and is laying her mother to rest, is actually appalling,” a Liberal MP tells The Saturday Paper.

“It’s hard not to argue that for too long the tail has wagged the dog and at some point we had to put a line in the sand. And if not now, then when?”

“And actually, giving her such a small window of time to negotiate with them, why the urgency? Why couldn’t we have had discussions into next week? If they wanted to actually in good faith negotiate terms, why didn’t we keep negotiating? We’re not going to an election next week. We’ve got a fair bit of time on our hands. It doesn’t make any sense why they are in such a hurry.”

The Nationals leader denies he disrespected Ley’s personal circumstances, telling the ABC the talks were “initiated after her mother’s death by her – by her and her office – to continue on”.

Exploring the fracture, Ley says she could not be assured of shadow cabinet solidarity. She says Littleproud asked for free votes on agreed policy such as committing to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, a position coupled to the position on nuclear power.

“We can’t have a situation where members of the shadow cabinet sit on different sides of the parliament in different votes,” the Liberal leader told 7.30 on Tuesday. “I don’t believe that the Coalition agreement itself should be hostage to individual policies.”

Bridget McKenzie denied this, but Littleproud later admitted he asked for an exemption to shadow cabinet solidarity and accepted that it was unacceptable to Ley.

This concession broke the stalemate and  gave each side a win.

In a statement released on Thursday, Ley said the two parties had restarted negotiations.

“Earlier today I wrote to, and met with, David inviting him to re-enter good-faith negotiations. I am pleased he has accepted,” she said. “In relation to the policy positions proposed by the National party room, consistent with my consultation commitment, the Liberal Party will consider these, utilising our party room processes.

“It has always been the Liberal Party’s objective to form a coalition and we welcome the Nationals’ decision to re-enter negotiations.”

Those on the Liberal side say the request to be relieved of cabinet solidarity calls into question how genuine the Nationals were in the negotiations.

“They were asking something of Sussan that they had never asked any Liberal leader historically, ever,” a Liberal MP said. “Howard wasn’t asked that. Tony Abbott wasn’t asked that. Malcolm Turnbull wasn’t asked that. Peter Dutton wasn’t asked that. Scott Morrison wasn’t asked that. But they have asked Sussan Ley.”

Another said the Nationals were trying to box the Liberals into a corner just as the party was trying to show the public they were listening and learning from the mistakes of the election.

“To expect us as a Liberal Party to lock into a position weeks after we’ve suffered the biggest defeat of our time as a party is very much looking to blow it up, in my opinion,” the MP told The Saturday Paper, before launching into praise of Ley.

“I think she’s done really well, to be honest. If you consider it through the lens of she had two options: she bends to the Nationals and upsets the party room by not making policy calls or she puts the Liberal party room first.

“It’s hard not to argue that for too long the tail has wagged the dog and at some point we had to put a line in the sand. And if not now, then when?”

Liberals believe the split was really over climate change and nuclear power.

“The giveaway was that they refused to say net zero is one of the reasons, but the biggest reason is net zero,” another Liberal MP told The Saturday Paper.

“They are hopelessly internally divided on net zero. You could say we are, but we’re actually not. We’re probably like 75 to 80 per cent [for it] to 20 per cent [against] on moving on with it and keeping it.

“But the Nats are like almost 50/50 and their membership and all the rest. They’re the ones actually with the big problem on this now, but then in public they try to pretend it’s about the Universal Service Obligation or some shit.”

Some Liberals say the Nationals are in a regional bubble and are not comprehending the views of voters.

“They believe that they are driving the correct agenda, but I don’t think that they have taken a moment to understand properly that the reason that we have gone backwards is because we have adopted their agenda, which is not a Liberal agenda, it’s a Nationals agenda, right?” an MP says. “And that doesn’t work in metropolitan seats in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, because people don’t vote for Nats in those seats. They vote for Liberals or progressive people, right? That’s the problem.”

Further complicating the situation is division between the Nationals and the Queensland Liberal National Party.

As a senior Liberal figure tells The Saturday Paper: “Everybody in the National Party hates the LNP because, in their eyes, they think the LNP are basically a bunch of transvestite Nats who’ve had a Liberal sex change.”

The move to dissolve the Coalition was not unanimous. Long-term MPs Darren Chester and Michael McCormack questioned the wisdom of the decision and are urging the Coalition to unite before parliament returns on July 22. They are understood not to be alone.

“I’m told very reliably that Barnaby thinks this is a bad idea,” one MP said.

The Saturday Paper sought comment from Joyce, but he was unavailable. Ley reached out to those MPs in a bid to reunite the two parties.

The MP added that McKenzie is seen as a “key driver” behind wanting the Nationals to “muscle up big time”.

Eight days before the split was announced, McKenzie wrote to Liberal Senate leader Michaelia Cash threatening to dissolve the Coalition over Price’s defection. “Depending on the outcome of negotiations between our parties over coming weeks, the Nationals senate party room will need to consider our position with respect to sitting with the Liberal Party as a Coalition in the senate chamber.”

Nationals deputy leader Kevin Hogan said the partyroom decision, while not unanimous, was still “quite conclusive”.

“I didn’t make this decision. David Littleproud didn’t make this decision. Bridget McKenzie didn’t make this decision,” Hogan said. “The party room made this decision.”

On May 7, four days after the Labor win, Matt Canavan floated the possibility of a split on Today.

“Now, look, we didn’t win government, so let’s not get carried away, but I do think with the way the Liberal Party is being pulled and pushed in different directions, there’s an opportunity for the country, for our Coalition, for the Nationals party to run in more seats,” he said, adding: “If that leads to us breaking up, great. Fine.”

Despite the decision to re-enter negotiations, the Nationals are adamant they want the four sticking points guaranteed.

Asked if the Coalition rupture could last until the next election, Littleproud said: “If we can’t get to an agreement, yes, that’s the case.”

While some Liberals say time away from the Nationals may help the Liberal Party reset and differentiate on policy, one MP tells The Saturday Paper there is no real benefit to the bust-up.

“It’s madness. We can’t differentiate ourselves because we can’t form government without the National Party,” the MP says.

“Whether we’re in Coalition with them or not, we own what they say, because the Australian people are going to expect from us transparency before the next election about what if any of the National Party’s agenda we will accept in order to form government, and, untethered from the Liberal Party, that National Party agenda is going to be much more extreme than it was when they’re in the Coalition.

“So, this idea it’s going to free us up to compete in the cities and be Liberals again and all that is extremely naive.”

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