Nats hold crisis talks after senators quit front bench
Zac de Silva and Tess Ikonomou |
Nationals MPs are threatening to again blow up the coalition after three of their colleagues quit the opposition front bench because of a split with the Liberals over hate crimes laws.
Members of the regional party have scheduled an emergency meeting for Wednesday evening, hours after Bridget McKenzie, Ross Cadell and Susan McDonald moved to the back bench.
The trio voted against the contentious anti-hate legislation in the Senate late on Tuesday night, which Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said was a breach of cabinet solidarity – a principle which requires all frontbenchers to vote the same way.
“Maintaining a strong and functioning coalition is in the national interest … but shadow cabinet solidarity is not optional,” she said in a statement released on Wednesday afternoon.
“It is the foundation of serious opposition and credible government.”
Nationals MP Anne Webster said her colleagues could walk away from the coalition altogether, as they did temporarily during a week-long split over climate policy.
“As we did after the election when the Liberals wouldn’t stand by our regionally focused policy positions, we took a step back from being in coalition and the Liberals understood the strength of our convictions for regional Australians,” Dr Webster said in a statement.
“We are not afraid to do it again.”
Ms Ley said she had asked Nationals leader David Littleproud to provide three new nominees for appointment to the shadow cabinet.
The groundwork for the acrimonious back-and-forth was laid on Sunday, when shadow cabinet, which includes senior Liberals and Nationals, agreed to support Labor’s hate crimes laws.
But on Tuesday night, less than 20 minutes before voting on the legislation began, Mr Littleproud said his party had decided to oppose it if amendments protecting free speech weren’t successful.
Speaking before his resignation from the frontbench, Senator Cadell said he held real fears about the legislation and acknowledged his break with shadow cabinet solidarity.
“I am willing to take the consequences of my actions,” he told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
“I think that is fair. It’s what I should do. I can’t do the crime if I’m not prepared to do the time.
“If more people stood up for what they believe … and didn’t play the game, this would be a better place. Australia would be a better country.”
Senator McKenzie, leader of the Nationals in the upper house, said she was “very aware” of the conventions of parliament when pressed if her position was untenable.
“I will be doing what I’ve always done (which) is trying to do my very best to conduct my career here with integrity,” she told Sky News.
The Liberals voted for the hate crimes bill in the lower house on Tuesday, while most in the rural party abstained.
The sole Nationals MP who voted in favour of the legislation, Michael McCormack, said he respected the decision of his Senate colleagues to vote against the bill after they failed to get the amendments up.
“There were a lot of conventions that were broken this week,” Mr McCormack told AAP.
Earlier, Nationals senator Matt Canavan pointed to a split within the coalition in 2008 over deregulation of the wheat industry, where none of the frontbenchers lost their positions.
It marks another flashpoint for Ms Ley’s leadership, after her authority was previously tested over the coalition’s climate policy.
Conservative Liberals Andrew Hastie and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price resigned from shadow cabinet in 2025, while Ms Ley has previously found herself at odds with Mr Littleproud over net zero policy.
The first two major polls of the year since the Bondi massacre showed One Nation nipping at the heels of the coalition.
AAP
