Nationals leader David Littleproud has declared he doesn’t care if his recent behaviour towards the Liberals “costs me my job”. And he’s certainly been acting like it.
Having presented Liberal leader Sussan Ley with an ultimatum regarding Liberal support for four apparently non-negotiable National policies, while also demanding exemption from cabinet solidarity, last Tuesday Littleproud withdrew the Nationals from the Coalition for the first time in nearly 40 years (while, it bears repeating, Ley was mourning the very recent death of her mother).
Further, according to Karen Middleton in Inside Story:
The wider Nationals neither drafted nor signed off on the four apparently non-negotiable policy measures before their leader took them into the talks. Furthermore, they hadn’t endorsed his demand that Nationals appointed to Ley’s opposition frontbench would be free to speak out against disagreeable decisions. They only learned he’d sought to jettison the sacrosanct shadow cabinet solidarity principle from media reports after the split was announced.
By the end of the week, having secured precisely nothing, the backdown had started.
Unsurprisingly, the Nats, implacably fractious at the best of times, are making noises about a leadership change. Littleproud is, according to one colleague, a “dead man walking”.
The contenders
Former deputy prime minister and serial Nats leader Barnaby Joyce would be an obvious thought for a possible replacement, but was reported last week to be privately indicating to his colleagues that he would back another former leader, Michael McCormack, should McCormack challenge for the role.
Joyce, who apparently described Littleproud’s leadership as “irreparably damaged”, publicly reiterated that the decision to split was a “shocker”.
“Whatever [the partyroom] decide to do, I want it sorted out. That was unedifying,” Joyce told Sunrise this morning, reiterating that he didn’t intend to run again and offering couched support for McCormack:
If he decides to go for the leadership, it’s his right to go for it. He’s a good bloke, I respect Mike. If he decides to do it, he decides to do it.
For his part, McCormack made a caveated denial that he was planning to run, telling ABC’s Afternoon Briefing last Friday, “I’m not planning to roll David any time soon”. In what must be a particularly bone-chilling turn of phrase to the ear of any political leader, McCormack added when pressed: “I’m ambitious for him.”
There’s so far no indication that senator and former communist Matt Canavan, who challenged Littleproud in mid-May, intends to have another go. He was telling Sky over the weekend that his challenge was not about winning but rather pushing for an end to the Nationals’ commitment to net zero by 2050.
“Now, obviously, that fight continues; haven’t quite got there yet, but I had good conversations with my colleagues about that. I’m sure there will be a reflection on that policy at some point while we’re in opposition here.”
Deputy leader Kevin Hogan told the ABC this weekend that questions around net zero had been “settled years ago”, Hogan said. “The policy is as is. The policy is as we took to the election.”
Whoever ends up as leader, the problem is unlikely to disappear — Nationals Colin Boyce and Llew O’Brien, both utterly opposed to climate targets, backed Canavan in his bid.
