The announcement today by Nationals leader David Littleproud that there would be no coalition agreement with the Liberals in the wake of their massive defeat is good news for Liberal leader Sussan Ley — and for the rural party, which is now free to pursue its policy interests untethered by the orthodox economics of Liberal MPs.
Littleproud’s announcement — which looked made in unseemly haste given Ley is dealing with the death of her mother — emphasised that the Nationals wanted to stick with their divestiture policy, nuclear power and a colossal regional rorts fund promised by now-departed Coalition leader Peter Dutton, whereas Ley wanted all Coalition policies to be up for review.
While the end of the Coalition — which has only happened twice before federally in the history of the Liberal and Country/National parties — is a further dramatic disruption to conservative politics in the wake of the May 3 disaster, it will make life considerably easier for Ley in trying to rebuild the Liberals to a more competitive and mainstream position.
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Nuclear energy — and the Nationals’ growing hostility to net zero — would make that job considerably harder. Instead, Ley will be able to craft a more 21st century energy policy without the climate denialists of the Nationals undermining it. The rump of climate denialist Liberals — mainly Liberal Nationals from Queensland — will have no Nationals allies to help prevent a more rational policy. Ditching nuclear will also remove from the Liberal agenda a vast big government project costing hundreds of billions of dollars which undermined the party’s free market credentials.
That will also apply to competition policy, with the Liberals likely to drift back towards their business roots and ditch the threat to break up big retailers, or anyone else.
As Crikey suggested last week, the Nationals will also be freed up not merely to advocate for nuclear power and fossil fuels but for tax and trade policies that will help their sectional constituency. As a unique party that advocates not for the national interest but for a geographically specific set of interests often deeply inimical to the national interest, the Nationals have particular demands that sometimes fit poorly into the traditional left-right alignment of Australian political parties — most particularly in relation to areas like banking and finance and infrastructure investment. Pursuing these independently with Labor might now be easier.
In abandoning the Coalition, Nationals MPs will be sacrificing the additional salary and perks that come with being in the shadow ministry, with a number of frontbench spots now freed up for what will be an all-Liberal opposition frontbench — although given how few Liberal MPs there actually will be in the new parliament (it will have just over 50 MPs and senators) filling it with talent will be a challenge.
Nonetheless, Ley’s challenge of bringing the Liberals back to the centre of politics and perhaps even bringing her party into the early 21st century on climate policy — thereby opening the way to becoming competitive again in metropolitan Australia — just became much easier.
Do you agree both parties will benefit from the end of the Coalition?
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