Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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Speaker 1: A whole new reality in Australian politics. The century old
Speaker 1: coalition of Conservative parties is breaking up, with National Party
Speaker 1: leader David Littlproud giving Liberal leader Susan Lee thirty minutes
Speaker 1: notice the Nats were out today. What that actually means
Speaker 1: for the Conservative side of politics and everyone else? It's
Speaker 1: not you, Actually, it is you.
Speaker 2: This is one of the hardest political decisions of my life.
Speaker 1: National Party leader David Little Proud dropped a bombshell on
Speaker 1: Liberal leader Susan Lee on Tuesday, telling her his party
Speaker 1: would no longer be in a formal coalition with the Liberals.
Speaker 2: It's with great disappointment that I announced that we're not
Speaker 2: going to form part of that coalition.
Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's national editor and someone who's
Speaker 1: covered the Libs and the Nats and all the quirks
Speaker 1: of their relationship for many years. They can never, of
Speaker 1: course govern in their own right unless something massive changes
Speaker 1: Dennis and the Nationals suddenly start winning seats in the
Speaker 1: cities as well. Do you think that this is a
Speaker 1: temporary move and it's a negotiating tactic where David Little
Speaker 1: Proud will hope to once again bring the Nationals back
Speaker 1: into a coalition party room, or is this an attempt
Speaker 1: to have bigger ambitions for the National Party.
Speaker 3: I think if it's an attempt to have bigger round
Speaker 3: for the National Party, it's pretty misguided. David Little Proud
Speaker 3: clearly in the manner of delivering an ultimatum to Susan
Speaker 3: Lee and simply saying We've got thirty minutes to talk
Speaker 3: about that and then I'm going out to a press conference,
Speaker 3: he put up proposals which were clearly not acceptable and
Speaker 3: impractical and really didn't require any split and a coalition
Speaker 3: to resolve. It was all about the National Party it
Speaker 3: was about the National Party leadership and the revolt about
Speaker 3: being in the coalition, anger at the loss by the Liberals,
Speaker 3: and so what David Little Proud has done, he said,
Speaker 3: I'm not interested in the coalition now because there's no
Speaker 3: advantage to it at all. All the advantage to him
Speaker 3: is to run his own show. However, I think what
Speaker 3: he's actually done is probably completely undermined Susan Lee's leadership
Speaker 3: and in doing so, just about guaranteed his leadership won't
Speaker 3: last either.
Speaker 1: Let's look at the issues that he says this is
Speaker 1: all about. And he was doing quite a bit of
Speaker 1: finger wagging and telling the journalists in the room that
Speaker 1: they might not understand, but this was a principal decision.
Speaker 2: We're being pragmatic. This is a principal position. So it
Speaker 2: may be foreign to some of you, but we are
Speaker 2: making this on principles about how we actually deliver for
Speaker 2: the people we represent and to allow the Liberal Party.
Speaker 1: The Nationals have a different view to the Liberals on
Speaker 1: nuclear power, on the forced breakup of big supermarket chains,
Speaker 1: of the establishment of a twenty billion dollar Regional Future Fund,
Speaker 1: and on service obligations for regional areas for people in
Speaker 1: the regions.
Speaker 2: What we fight for every day. That's the principal position
Speaker 2: we took that we needed to have comfort.
Speaker 1: Around how important are those issues? Dennis, was this really
Speaker 1: all about principles?
Speaker 3: Well, going backwards, the regional fund. Really it's off budget.
Speaker 3: It's something that could easily have been accommodator. That's not
Speaker 3: a problem as far as nuclear power is concerned. It
Speaker 3: was working on an agnostic basis saying this is where
Speaker 3: the Liberals are going, and don't forget that former Nat
Speaker 3: Country Liberal Party just since a Nampajimpa Price has said
Speaker 3: nuclear is the only way to achieve net zero. So
Speaker 3: if the Liberals want to keep net zero, one of
Speaker 3: their star recruits is saying you have to have nuclear again.
Speaker 4: It was one of.
Speaker 3: Those areas where you could have resolved certain issues.
Speaker 4: The Nats and the Liberals have done this for years.
Speaker 3: So I think that what we actually have here is
Speaker 3: a National Party leader looking for principled reasons to provide
Speaker 3: a justifiable cause for splitting the coalition for the first
Speaker 3: time in a very long time and allowing him to
Speaker 3: be seen as the new Nationals leader. I don't think
Speaker 3: it's working. I don't think anyone, particularly a lot of
Speaker 3: the Liberals buy this idea, and by the way, there
Speaker 3: aren't a lot of Nationals who buy this either.
Speaker 1: Coming up more from my conversation with Dennis Shanahan, would
Speaker 1: it be fair enough for Susan Lee and some of
Speaker 1: the Liberals to have a bit of a bitter taste
Speaker 1: in their mouths, Dennis, given that it's the National's position
Speaker 1: on some big issues that have resulted in the coalition
Speaker 1: overall and the Liberal Party looking like they were more
Speaker 1: conservative than perhaps some Liberals would have wanted. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of the National's reluctance to embrace, for example, the transition
Speaker 1: to renewable energy in the past. Although some Liberals did
Speaker 1: want to go faster, they had to bring the Nationals
Speaker 1: along with them.
Speaker 3: Yes, the net zero omissions by twenty fifty was a
Speaker 3: negotiated agreement between the Nationals and the Liberals.
Speaker 4: Both leaders gone.
Speaker 3: But what we're actually seeing here is the suggestion that
Speaker 3: the moderate Liberals have a different view to the conservative Nationals.
Speaker 4: And duh, this has always been the case.
Speaker 3: If you want to see some real differences, think about
Speaker 3: some of the old Country Party leaders. Boy did they
Speaker 3: have some differences with the Liberals, but they survived in coalition,
Speaker 3: and there were some really tough National Party leaders with John.
Speaker 4: Howard who worked with him.
Speaker 3: Look at Tim Fisher worked with John Howard on gun reform.
Speaker 4: That was a big issue for the Nationals.
Speaker 3: They didn't want to touch it, and yet Tim Fisher
Speaker 3: brought the Nationals along. Now, that was a much tougher
Speaker 3: issue than something about supermarket chains. And yet the coalition
Speaker 3: survived because John Howard and Tim Fisher were coalitionists. John
Speaker 3: Howard after the Port Arthur massacre, and this was only
Speaker 3: a few weeks after John Howard had become Prime minister.
Speaker 3: It was the biggest massacre in Australian history and what
Speaker 3: the Prime Minister knew then was that we had to
Speaker 3: change the gun laws.
Speaker 5: At least thirty four people were killed and four others
Speaker 5: critically wounded when a twenty nine year old gunman with
Speaker 5: a history of mental problems opened fire in a popular
Speaker 5: tourist area. The cournage came to an annually after the
Speaker 5: gunman caught fire following a twelve hour standoff with police.
Speaker 4: This was an imperative, it was a moral decision he took.
Speaker 3: But to get that politics through, to get the legislation through,
Speaker 3: to get through with popular support. He needed the national
Speaker 3: support because this was a very difficult issue. Gun control
Speaker 3: was very much opposed in the regional areas. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: and yet Tim Fisher, as leader of the Nationals, worked
Speaker 3: with John Howard hand in fist and said no, we
Speaker 3: are going to work on this, and they carried it.
Speaker 3: And there's no doubt it cost the Nationals because it
Speaker 3: built support for.
Speaker 4: Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party.
Speaker 3: And yet we saw the coalition survive such a severe
Speaker 3: test to the advantage of the national interest. You can
Speaker 3: work around these differences and you can turn them into
Speaker 3: a strength without blowing up the bus.
Speaker 1: Do you think, Dennis, that it's in the best interest
Speaker 1: for the Liberals to keep working, be patient, hope that
Speaker 1: the Nationals come back to the coalition, or to look
Speaker 1: at other options. Should they think about going into coalition,
Speaker 1: for example with the Teals.
Speaker 3: It's funny you should mention that because I had a
Speaker 3: message from someone who shall remain named, suggesting that I
Speaker 3: reread The Gbung Polo Club by Banjo Patterson. Now, the
Speaker 3: Gbung Polo Club is about a polo match on a
Speaker 3: rocky field between the Collis and Ties. The bosses and
Speaker 3: cockies and the whole bunch of scrub dwelling stockman. In
Speaker 3: the end, everyone on the Gbung Polo Club match is
Speaker 3: killed until the last moment the captain of the collis
Speaker 3: and Ties stirs himself.
Speaker 4: Although mortally wounded, he.
Speaker 3: Makes his way back onto his pony, charges towards the
Speaker 3: goalposts and hits the ball and misses.
Speaker 4: So it ended in a tie with them all dead.
Speaker 3: This was what the reference to the Gbung Polo Club
Speaker 3: was all about. That without each other, they will all die,
Speaker 3: and the Nationals at facing like so many more conservative
Speaker 3: parties regional parties in Europe, that what will happen to them?
Speaker 4: They'll be reduced to a rump.
Speaker 3: Now, the Liberal Party is more likely to attract some
Speaker 3: of the Teals and have some sort of a coalition.
Speaker 3: But remember most of those Teals, or all of those
Speaker 3: Teals have come from Liberal seats, so there's no great
Speaker 3: advantage for the Liberals in forming a coalition with the Teals.
Speaker 3: They have to win those Teal seats back. But if
Speaker 3: they wish to get back to government, the Nationals will
Speaker 3: have to come back to the coalition. And this is
Speaker 3: the question for David Little Proud because in three years time,
Speaker 3: facing an election, and who knows what may have happened
Speaker 3: by then. And then the question is what happens to
Speaker 3: David Little Proud if he is against the coalition and
Speaker 3: a majority of Liberals and Nationals say, if we have
Speaker 3: any hope of winning, any hope of even getting back seats,
Speaker 3: we need a coalition, where does that put him with
Speaker 3: his thirty minute ultimatum decision.
Speaker 1: Lee des Shanahan is The Australian's National editor. You can
Speaker 1: read all his analysis, plus all the rest of our
Speaker 1: expertise on Canberra and politics from the rest of the country,
Speaker 1: right now at the Australian dot com dot au