Speaker 1: Already and this is the Daily OS.
Speaker 2: This is the Daily OS.
Speaker 1: Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 3: Good morning and welcome to the Daily Odds. It's Friday,
Speaker 3: the twenty third of January.
Speaker 4: I'm Lucy Tassel, I'm Emma Gillespie.
Speaker 3: For the second time in less than a year, the
Speaker 3: Nationals have walked away from the Federal Coalition. This time,
Speaker 3: the exit was sparked by one of the two bills
Speaker 3: the government brought to a special sitting of Parliament this week,
Speaker 3: but ended up centering on the inner workings of the
Speaker 3: coalition and the parties that make it up. Today, we'll
Speaker 3: take you through the whole story from the beginning, explaining
Speaker 3: everything you need to know about the coalition's latest breakup.
Speaker 4: Lucy, I've got a bit of deja vous this week
Speaker 4: with these headlines. You said you would explain this one
Speaker 4: from the beginning, but when is that a exactly Well.
Speaker 3: I had a lot of thinking to do about where
Speaker 3: this technically starts. Do we start when the coalition formed
Speaker 3: for the first time, which was in nineteen twenty three.
Speaker 3: Do we say in nineteen eighty seven when they reformed
Speaker 3: for good after a short break after running separately in
Speaker 3: the Federal election and losing very badly to Bob Hawk's
Speaker 3: Labor for the third time in a row. After that election,
Speaker 3: they got back together and they were together all through
Speaker 3: until last year, including in government and opposition last year.
Speaker 3: Of course, May twenty twenty five. The last time we
Speaker 3: talked about the coalition's history and formation was after the
Speaker 3: most recent federal election, and that's when National's leader David
Speaker 3: Littelproud said the party couldn't secure guarantees about several policy
Speaker 3: positions as the coalition was kind of considering its place
Speaker 3: post election loss.
Speaker 4: So as in he couldn't secure guarantees about where the
Speaker 4: Nationals would stand on liberal policy positions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he basically because the coalition acts together. The Nationals
Speaker 3: wanted certain things to be coalition policy, and he couldn't
Speaker 3: secure guarantees from the Liberals, the senior partner, and the
Speaker 3: coalition that those things would be agreed to.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Now, At the time, Liberal leader Susan Lee said that
Speaker 3: this was because every policy was up for review post
Speaker 3: election and she wouldn't commit to anything specific because they
Speaker 3: were still working through that process.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: When they split last time, it lasted eight days. When
Speaker 3: they got back together. That reunion didn't resolve everything, as
Speaker 3: we now see, and one of those things that was
Speaker 3: left unresolved, which i'll just foreshadow, is called shadow cabinet solidarity.
Speaker 3: That reared its head again this week as Parliament sat
Speaker 3: to pass two emergency bills. Now, Emma, you were on
Speaker 3: the pod earlier this week to explain the context of
Speaker 3: those bills, so maybe you can give us a quick rundown.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so very complicated, but I'll try to keep it simple.
Speaker 4: As I explained earlier in the week, there were two
Speaker 4: bills before Parliament this special sitting in the wake of
Speaker 4: the anti Semitic Bondi terror attack. Initially that was one
Speaker 4: piece of legislation, then it was split. We won't get
Speaker 4: into that. One of the bills was to tighten gun
Speaker 4: ownership rules and one was around hate speech. Now, the
Speaker 4: gun reform Bill you've probably heard about. It includes a
Speaker 4: national buyback scheme, a new condition requiring firearm license holders
Speaker 4: to be Australian citizens, and some other reforms there. While
Speaker 4: the Hate Speech Bill, much more controversial piece of legislation,
Speaker 4: it has to be said, had a few aspects, but
Speaker 4: probably the most relevant one to this discussion. Based on
Speaker 4: what I've read at least was around a new national
Speaker 4: framework allowing the government to formally list prohibited hate groups
Speaker 4: similar to how terrorist organizations are listed. So, Lucy, the
Speaker 4: Coalition was involved in amending these bills. It said that
Speaker 4: it had certain sticking points that it wanted to see
Speaker 4: resolved in order to support the bills. What do we
Speaker 4: know about what the Nats wanted changed on.
Speaker 3: The Hate Speech Bill, which, as you said, is the
Speaker 3: most relevant to us today. The most contentious Opposition leader
Speaker 3: Susan Lee has said the Coalition had worked to quote
Speaker 3: narrow the scope of this bill to deal with anti
Speaker 3: Semitism and tackle radical Islamist extremism. Now Lee's version of
Speaker 3: events is that the Shadow Cabinet, so that's her team
Speaker 3: of senior ministers from across the coalition, met on Sunday
Speaker 3: night to look over the government's proposed bills and to
Speaker 3: work out any issues they wanted to raise before they
Speaker 3: were brought to Parliament, then to discuss those with the government,
Speaker 3: which they then did, and then the bills came to
Speaker 3: Parliament assumedly with the support of the Coalition. Then after that,
Speaker 3: according to reporting by Paul Sakhal at The Sydney Morning Herald.
Speaker 3: The Nationals then met as a party separately on Monday
Speaker 3: and Tuesday and came to a different position with the
Speaker 3: input of backbencher Matt Canavan, who was concerned the hate
Speaker 3: group listing part of the bill might end up including
Speaker 3: quote mainstream political and religious groups.
Speaker 4: Okay, to recap, the coalition leadership from what we know,
Speaker 4: had agreed to a position, or the Liberal Party says
Speaker 4: the coalition leadership had agreed to a position. It's agreed
Speaker 4: to support the Hate Speech Bill if the Government agrees
Speaker 4: to some changes. So the coalition says, these other things
Speaker 4: we need to change. We're all aligned on that. If
Speaker 4: that changes, we support this bill. And the Government then
Speaker 4: does make those changes to allow the bill to pass.
Speaker 4: Then the Nationals, including those who are in the shadow cabinet,
Speaker 4: so senior leadership, they meet to discuss other issues away from.
Speaker 1: The Liberal Party.
Speaker 4: What happened once the bills came to Parliament in a
Speaker 4: form that I'm assuming the Liberal Party thought the Nationals
Speaker 4: would support.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So when the bills went to the lower House,
Speaker 3: the House of Representatives, one Nationals MP abstained from voting
Speaker 3: for the bill, so they didn't vote one way or another.
Speaker 3: The one who voted for it was backbencher Michael McCormack,
Speaker 3: who is the former leader of the Nationals. He was
Speaker 3: Deputy PM under Scott Morrison for a few years and
Speaker 3: he told AAP he didn't want to let the perfect
Speaker 3: be the enemy of the good. Those were his words. Okay,
Speaker 3: this didn't particularly matter in the lower House because Labor
Speaker 3: has a huge majority as we remember from the May election,
Speaker 3: so it didn't need anyone else's support in that part
Speaker 3: of Parliament. But then in the Senate things look different.
Speaker 3: Labor needed the support of the Coalition or a group
Speaker 3: of independents or the Greens, or they need to basically
Speaker 3: form support using different variations of the other parties in
Speaker 3: the Senate every time they want to get something through.
Speaker 3: Late on Tuesday night, around twenty minutes before the Hate
Speaker 3: Speech Bill was set to come up for a vote
Speaker 3: in the Senate, Little Proud posted a statement on x
Speaker 3: and he said the Nationals had decided they could support
Speaker 3: the bill. He said the Nationals wanted to move amendments
Speaker 3: to quote guarantee greater protections against unintended consequences that limit
Speaker 3: the rights and freedom of speech of everyday Australians and
Speaker 3: the Jewish community, and he said that if their amendments
Speaker 3: didn't pass, the Nationals would vote against the bill in
Speaker 3: the Senate. So they've abstained in the House. Later that
Speaker 3: day he's released his statement it's coming up for a vote,
Speaker 3: and then that is what they did. There are three
Speaker 3: Nationals in the Senate, plus there's Susan McDonald who is
Speaker 3: part of the Queensland Combined Liberal National Party. You probably
Speaker 3: heard about them last we talked about the coalition because
Speaker 3: we were saying, like, what happens now to the Combined Party?
Speaker 3: Nothing at the state level, but at the federal level,
Speaker 3: some stuff happens. So Susan McDonald, Bridget McKenzie, the aforementioned
Speaker 3: Matt Canavan and Ross Cadell voted against the bill. McDonald,
Speaker 3: McKenzie and Cadell were all members of the shadow cabinet,
Speaker 3: so this was very significant for them to vote against
Speaker 3: the bill.
Speaker 4: Can you explain, Lucy, why it was so significant that
Speaker 4: we had these senior Nationals leaders vote against the bill
Speaker 4: and presumably against their Liberal counterparts in the Senate.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So when a party forms government or it forms an
Speaker 3: official opposition, they set up a cabinet of ministers to
Speaker 3: advise their leader and to manage matters of importance agriculture,
Speaker 3: like the Minister for Women, the Shadow Minister for Women,
Speaker 3: the treasurer, the shadow Treasurer. In the coalition, members of
Speaker 3: the cabinet or the shadow cabinet are bound to vote
Speaker 3: together and to not publicly disagree on party policy based
Speaker 3: on the position they agree to behind closed doors, and
Speaker 3: their cabinet or their shadow cabinet draws on the Liberal,
Speaker 3: the National the Liberal National, the Country Liberal parties, all
Speaker 3: of these different small parties that make up the coalition.
Speaker 4: Okay, So while the National Party and the Liberal Party
Speaker 4: are separate parties on their own, when they come together
Speaker 4: as a coalition under the leadership of a shadow cabinet,
Speaker 4: that shadow cabinet is meant to be aligned on all policy.
Speaker 4: Whatever goes on behind closed doors, maybe they will disagree,
Speaker 4: have heated arguments that we don't hear about, but they
Speaker 4: are then publicly facing and in the Parliament saying this
Speaker 4: is where we're at on this.
Speaker 3: Thing, united front. This is interesting because it's different to Labor,
Speaker 3: where that rule applies to the entire party. They can
Speaker 3: disagree on things behind closed doors, but not so much
Speaker 3: publicly disagreeing on policy, but they have to vote together
Speaker 3: one hundred percent of the time, unless it's a conscience
Speaker 3: vote where they're allowed to vote based on personal beliefs.
Speaker 4: Which is why you will more often see a Liberal
Speaker 4: or National MP crossing the floor.
Speaker 1: That's the way that it's referred to.
Speaker 4: They may cross the floor on a piece of legislation
Speaker 4: and vote against their party, but that is very rare for.
Speaker 3: A Yeah, and in the coalition. You really shouldn't do
Speaker 3: that if you're in the cabinet, if you want to
Speaker 3: keep your cabinet post. Historically, speaking now, back in May
Speaker 3: after the federal election, Susan Lee said, one of the
Speaker 3: issues that led to that split was that the Nationals
Speaker 3: wanted to do away with cabinet solidarity.
Speaker 1: That's what it's called.
Speaker 4: That first split of the Nationals and Liberal Party coalition.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she said at the time that this was an
Speaker 3: issue and this was a subject of some dispute. As
Speaker 3: you'll hear in this clip from Sarah Ferguson on the
Speaker 3: ABC's seven thirty interviewing Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie again, one
Speaker 3: of those cabinet members who voted against the bill at
Speaker 3: the time.
Speaker 5: Are you saying, Susan Lee is not telling the truth
Speaker 5: when she says one of the key issues was a
Speaker 5: request from the Nationals that they not be obliged to
Speaker 5: maintain shadow cabinet solidarity.
Speaker 2: So Sarah, I can tell you because I was in
Speaker 2: the National Party party room that made this decision, the
Speaker 2: decision which was then conveyed the Liberal leader, and that
Speaker 2: was not part of our consideration.
Speaker 5: Now, as that interview played, We've just received a note
Speaker 5: from Susan Lee's office saying it is not correct to
Speaker 5: suggest that shadow cabinet solidarity was not a sticking point,
Speaker 5: and they, that is Susan Lee's office, have that in writing.
Speaker 3: In the end, the Nationals did agree to cabinet solidarity
Speaker 3: and the coalition got back together. But we see now
Speaker 3: that the issue might have been resolved in word, but
Speaker 3: not so much indeed in action, because these shadow cabinet
Speaker 3: members voted against the bill and against their solidarity obligation,
Speaker 3: and all three of those who are shadow cabinet members
Speaker 3: handed in their resignations on Wednesday.
Speaker 4: So three National Senators who are in the shadow cabinet
Speaker 4: vote against the Liberal Party, breaking that rule of cabinet solidarity,
Speaker 4: and as a result they hand in their resignations from
Speaker 4: the cabinet, right, not from their roles altogether.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not as senators, but as shadow cabinet members.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: How did opposition leader Liberal Party leader Susan Lee react
Speaker 4: to all of this? What has she had to say
Speaker 4: about this huge shift within her party?
Speaker 3: In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Lee said, quote, shadow
Speaker 3: cabinet solidarity is not optional. It is the foundation of
Speaker 3: serious opposition and credible government. And she outlined all those
Speaker 3: points that I've attributed to her throughout this episode, her
Speaker 3: version of events that she says the shadow cabinet agreed together.
Speaker 3: And she added that she had spoken to Little Proud
Speaker 3: several times on Tuesday, the day that it was before
Speaker 3: the Senate, to make it clear that quote, members of
Speaker 3: the shadow cabinet could not vote against the shadow cabinet position.
Speaker 3: So you can see Little Proud has abided by that
Speaker 3: in abstaining not voting against but not the senor the
Speaker 3: other senior Nationals. Lee accepted their resignations, and then on
Speaker 3: Wednesday night it was reported that the Nationals were having
Speaker 3: a crisis meeting, and later that night all of the
Speaker 3: Nationals who were still in the shadow Cabinet all resigned
Speaker 3: from the Shadow Cabinet a.
Speaker 1: Total of eight Nationals MPs.
Speaker 3: Right Lee said at the time that quote no permanent
Speaker 3: changes will be made to the Shadow Ministry at this time,
Speaker 3: giving the National Party time to reconsider these offers of resignation.
Speaker 3: And that then brings us to eight thirty am Thursday morning,
Speaker 3: just as I walk into the office with my coffee,
Speaker 3: ready to start a day that I thought could possibly
Speaker 3: involve a coalition split, but I wasn't one hundred percent sure,
Speaker 3: and I turned on the office TVs to see David
Speaker 3: Little Proud at a press conference saying the Nationals were
Speaker 3: walking out of the coalition again.
Speaker 4: Okay, we have obviously heard loud and clear Susan Lee's
Speaker 4: version of events. What has David Little Proud said, as
Speaker 4: Leader of the Nationals to explain what's gone on here?
Speaker 1: How has he responded?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's basically outlined a kind of different version of events.
Speaker 3: He said the Nationals had to old the Shadow Cabinet
Speaker 3: meeting on Sunday that they supported the parts of the
Speaker 3: bill that related to giving the Home Affairs Minister more
Speaker 3: power to refuse or cancel people's visas, but that the
Speaker 3: Nationals had quote serious reservations about the freedom of speech
Speaker 3: and the hate organizations. We wanted to make sure that
Speaker 3: we got the right mechanism that didn't impinge on honest
Speaker 3: Australian's rights to speak. He said. The Nats had been
Speaker 3: working on Monday and Tuesday on the amendments, which he
Speaker 3: said they had flagged they wanted to do, and he
Speaker 3: said Lee told him to let the Nationals raise those
Speaker 3: amendments and quote if they failed, then consider voting a
Speaker 3: different way. So that's Little Proud's characterization. But then Little
Speaker 3: Proud said, when Lee said this, the House of Representatives
Speaker 3: was on the point of voting for the bill. So
Speaker 3: with no time left, he said he abided by his
Speaker 3: solidarity requirement by abstaining from the vote.
Speaker 4: Okay, so the Nationals wanted amendments to the bill, there
Speaker 4: was no time to discuss or get those amendments sorted
Speaker 4: before it ended up being voted on in the Lower House,
Speaker 4: and as a result, the Nationals, with this kind of
Speaker 4: unresolved list of amendments, decided not to vote rather than
Speaker 4: vote for or against.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly because he, as a member of the Shadow Cabinet,
Speaker 3: didn't want to break that rule. As he says that
Speaker 3: meant that the amendments had to go in the Senate.
Speaker 3: That's the last place that they could go. When they
Speaker 3: did go and they failed, Little Prowd says this meant
Speaker 3: the senators voted against the bill quote as the will
Speaker 3: of the National Party party room. When they resigned after this,
Speaker 3: Little Proud said he told Lee that if she accepted
Speaker 3: their resignations, the rest of the Nationals in the shadow
Speaker 3: cabinet would walk because it quote would not be appropriate
Speaker 3: considering the circumstances we had. And he ended up sort
Speaker 3: of blaming the government for the situation, calling it a
Speaker 3: rushed process.
Speaker 4: Okay, we've got the leader of the NACE, David little Proud,
Speaker 4: saying that government has pushed forward this legislation too quickly.
Speaker 4: There hasn't been enough time for proper due diligence. These
Speaker 4: sort of extraordinary circumstances of Parliament being recalled early in
Speaker 4: the wake of the horrific Bondi terror attack. Then you've
Speaker 4: got Little Proud saying that Susan Lee wanted the Nationals
Speaker 4: to figure out these amendments and raise them. Those amendments
Speaker 4: were raised in the Senate by the three National senators
Speaker 4: who are also in shadow cabinet, the amendments fail, the
Speaker 4: Nationals don't support the hate speech bill, and those three
Speaker 4: National senators resign. Am I right in thinking Little Proud
Speaker 4: is then upset with Susan Lee for accepting those resignations
Speaker 4: and as a result stands in solidarity with his party
Speaker 4: room and the entire presence of Nationals in the shadow cabinet.
Speaker 1: Resign from shadow cabinet.
Speaker 3: That's basically the gist of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, thank you, sorry, a lot of moving parts.
Speaker 4: Just wanted to make sure we were on the same
Speaker 4: page totally. What's interesting to me, Lucy, is that Susan Lee,
Speaker 4: as Opposition leader, was calling for Parliament to be recalled
Speaker 4: urgently to deal with anti Semitism, to have legislation of
Speaker 4: this nature tabled in the days immediately following the Bondi
Speaker 4: terror attack. This is what we had heard from her.
Speaker 4: She wanted parliament to be recalled before Christmas. So there
Speaker 4: has been some criticism or confusion, I suppose around the
Speaker 4: line from both the Liberal and National parties that this
Speaker 4: was rushed and too quick a process, when that is
Speaker 4: what the opposition leader wanted, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, both before and after Christmas. In the first
Speaker 3: weeks of January, Lee was saying Parliament had to come back.
Speaker 3: She was saying that as early as the seventeenth of December,
Speaker 3: with the attack having occurred on the fourteenth of December,
Speaker 3: and in the first week of January, she said there
Speaker 3: had been enough time between the attack and Christmas. She
Speaker 3: said that was a quote fair timeline. Now Little Proud
Speaker 3: said the Nationals would have the third Parliament come back
Speaker 3: to vote on just the migration aspect of the bill,
Speaker 3: so just the Home Affairs aspect, and divert the rest
Speaker 3: to committees to discuss in more detail. Finally, the final
Speaker 3: thing that he said that I think we should touch
Speaker 3: on is he said, quote the Nationals cannot be part
Speaker 3: of a shadow ministry under Susan Lee.
Speaker 4: So very direct and clear in his language there. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there have been I suppose question marks around Susan Lee's
Speaker 4: leadership ever since these cracks first emerged between the Liberal
Speaker 4: and National Parties as a coalition.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What has the response to all of.
Speaker 4: This been from Susan Lee, the opposition leader and as
Speaker 4: well as the Prime Minister Anthony Albinezi as the person
Speaker 4: leading the legislation himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so all of this was happening on the National
Speaker 3: Day of Mourning for the victims of the bond Eyed
Speaker 3: terror attack. Lee sent out a statement at nine am,
Speaker 3: right after Little Proud finished his presser. She said, quote,
Speaker 3: today the folks must be on Jewish Australians, indeed all
Speaker 3: Australians as we mourn the victims of the Bondai terrorist attack.
Speaker 3: My responsibility as leader of the Opposition and leader of
Speaker 3: the Liberal Party is to Australians in mourning. And at
Speaker 3: the time of recording, we've also heard similar things from Albanezi,
Speaker 3: who was involved in events for the day throughout all
Speaker 3: of Thursday.
Speaker 4: Okay, so both leaders there focused on the day of
Speaker 4: Mourning on Thursday rather than discussing the ins and outs
Speaker 4: of this political turmoil.
Speaker 3: Yes, we did hear from ex National and erstwhile National
Speaker 3: Party leader Barnaby Joyce. He told reporters in his electorate
Speaker 3: in Tamworth on Thursday that Little Proud had quote besmirched
Speaker 3: the proper role of what is supposed to happen in
Speaker 3: a parliament where the government puts forward legislation and the
Speaker 3: opposition forensically goes through it. Coalition is a marriage and
Speaker 3: this is more marriages than a weekend at the Gold Coast.
Speaker 3: It's just not working. He added that it seemed like
Speaker 3: a quote recruitment drive for his new party, One Nation.
Speaker 4: And this all comes, of course, hot on the heels
Speaker 4: of One Nation. A historic result in the latest polling,
Speaker 4: yes having more support amongst the Australian electorate than the
Speaker 4: coalition itself.
Speaker 3: Yeah. In the News poll which is run for the
Speaker 3: Australian they were one percent ahead of the Coalition. The
Speaker 3: question being if the election were held tomorrow, who would
Speaker 3: you rank number one on your ranked ballot?
Speaker 4: So fascinating to see, Lucy. There are so many unanswered
Speaker 4: questions in terms of what comes next, but no doubt
Speaker 4: the conversation about Susan Lee's leadership will continue to be
Speaker 4: debated and we'll keep a close eye on it. Thank
Speaker 4: you for listening to today's episode. That's all we've got
Speaker 4: time for for today's Deep Dive, but we will be
Speaker 4: back a little later on with your evening news headlines.
Speaker 1: Until then, have a great day.
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