Barnaby Joyce, McCormack show Sussan Ley’s Coalition divided

An anonymous federal Liberal MP who opposed Sussan Ley as party leader when she stood for the role in May told The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday it would be “electoral suicide” to try to challenge her position at this juncture.

“No-one is close to talking about doing that,” the person said. “[Leadership rival Angus Taylor]’s inner sanctum believes she needs to fail on her terms for him to ever come back. She’ll be given time.”

Hardly a ringing endorsement or a sincere attempt at forging unity — but at least it was a slightly more serious effort at political strategy than that displayed by the Liberals’ coalition partner.

In an interview in today’s The AustralianNational MPs and former leadership rivals Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack have for some reason decided to announce they are friends and allies again; to reveal that McCormack has backflipped on net zero and now supports Joyce’s planned private member’s bill to repeal it; and to unload on their own party leader, David Littleproud.

It hardly seems like the two former Nats leaders were dragged kicking and screaming into the interview: the story was illustrated with several newly taken photographs of the MPs posing together and smiling, and at one point in the chat with reporter Greg Brown, McCormack appears to have interjected to finish Joyce’s sentence for him.

Presumably Littleproud won’t be as happy about the attempt to undermine him, timed to coincide with the opening of the new parliament where the Coalition’s ability to impact legislation will be seriously weakened.

For the Australian voting public, which doesn’t need to concern itself with partyroom solidarity, the interview is a fascinating insight into the power games being played behind closed doors.

Joyce claimed Peter Dutton asked him to retire before the election, and later “lost his mind” and swore at him after Joyce refused to say in an ABC interview that nuclear power would bring down electricity prices.

Both McCormack and Joyce said they found out via questions from a reporter that they had been booted from the frontbench in the party’s post-election reshuffle, and Joyce said he interpreted Littleproud’s comment the party needed “generational change” as meaning the leader thought Joyce should retire.

When Joyce was asked a question about why he now backed McCormack as a future party leader when he had previously undermined him, McCormack interjected to say: “Because he wanted the job himself.”

Joyce said “everyone” in politics was ambitious and believed themselves to be the best person to lead: “Let’s rid ourselves of this idea that people don’t have aspirations. The question you should always ask in politics is: who would be the second best prime minister? Because you know who the best is going to be: the person that you are talking to.”

The interview also underscored a fact that most Coalition MPs would usually try to downplay: that Nationals and Liberals view each other as bitter enemies that would do anything to undermine each other given the chance. The problem with Littleproud’s Coalition split, Joyce said, was that it would have allowed the Liberals to use their financial advantage to run against the Nats at the next election: “It’s like charging into battle and you’ve got no bullets,” he said.

With that Coalition split, Littleproud did himself and his colleagues no favours, and it’s no wonder that tensions are high within the Nationals. But Joyce and McCormack’s sniping will also hurt Ley, who will struggle to mount an effective check on Labor’s unprecedented power with her low numbers and quarrelling caucus. Plus, for a Liberal leader who declared in May the “climate wars” were over, Joyce’s net zero repeal bill is going to be an unwelcome addition to her list of concerns.

Joyce and others in the Coalition may describe themselves as ambitious. But with the continuing displays of disunity and focus on internal party squabbles even as the real work of opposition mounts, they risk leaving the public with the impression they view this term of parliament as a wash.