Nationals confident Coalition will unite by election
Grace Crivellaro |
The Nationals are confident they will rejoin the Coalition well before the election, but members say they won’t be held on arbitrary deadlines.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley told Nationals leader David Littleproud earlier this week a new Coalition could reform within days, under the condition three former Nationals shadow ministers who crossed the floor were sin-binned from the front bench for six months.
Nationals members held a party room meeting on Wednesday to determine their response, but Mr Littleproud was scant on detail when pressed by reporters.
“There is no decision today,” he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.
“My intention is that there will be a coalition at some point in the future, well before the election.”
Mr Littleproud dug in on his position that the joint party room process wasn’t followed during the debate of contentious hate speech laws, which resulted in senators Bridget McKenzie, Ross Cadell and Susan McDonald crossing the floor.
“We did nothing wrong, we stuck to the processes, the process fell down and it wasn’t afforded to us,” he said.
“We made a decision that we couldn’t support a bill that was going to take away the freedom of speech of every Australian.”
He declined to say whether he was meeting with Ley on Thursday for further discussions, and repeatedly criticised media reports, saying the Nationals had been vilified over the last two weeks.
The Nationals have until Monday to reform the Coalition before Ms Ley makes permanent an all-Liberal shadow cabinet.
Nationals MP Kevin Hogan said the party may counter Ms Ley’s offer, but that “we don’t want an arbitrary deadline that cuts this off”.
Senator McKenzie denied being the reason the coalition hasn’t got back together yet.
“We’re all coalitionists in the National Party, and it’s up to our two leaders to bring that relationship together,” she told the Today Show.
Mr Littleproud refused to engage in “hypotheticals” about a three-way Coalition with One Nation, as leader of the far-right party Pauline Hanson suggested on Sky News on Wednesday night.
“I would work with them to give them supply,” Senator Hanson said.
“Would I join up to the rabble that they are at the moment? No way in the wide world, but I have my strong policies that we need.”
Recent polls have shown public support for One Nation surpassing the Coalition for the first time.
A Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll, published on Sunday, showed support for One Nation had jumped to 26 per cent, well above the former Coalition’s 19 per cent primary vote.
AAP
