Home fires keep Nationals leader Michael McCormack off road

The Deputy PM has pulled out of a summit in Sweden as he deals with damaging party splits.

The Deputy Prime Minister, who was scheduled to travel to Stockholm next week for a two-day summit, will remain in Australia. Picture: AAP

Michael McCormack has been forced to pull out of a global road safety summit in Sweden as he deals with damaging splits in the Nationals party, which threaten to spark wider divisions inside the Coalition.

The Australian can reveal the Deputy Prime Minister, who was scheduled to travel to Stockholm next week for a two-day summit, will remain in Australia due to the bushfire response and amid rising tensions among Nationals MPs.

Scott Morrison, who has been forced to personally deal with rogue Nationals MPs, told colleagues on Tuesday they must represent Australians who voted for the Coalition and act accordingly.

The rallying call, which came after moderate Liberal MPs were urged by cabinet ministers to avoid stoushes with Nationals on climate change and energy, was aimed at calming tensions in the Coalition partyroom.

“The people who supported us, we owe it to them to continue to deliver for them and to deliver what we promised in terms of tax relief, economic growth, and other policies including a stable government that is focused on them. That’s the contract we have with the Australian people,” Mr Morrison told colleagues in the joint partyroom.

Mr Morrison urged government MPs to think of the public because “when they are foremost in our minds, then we do our best for them”.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg echoed Mr Morrison’s calls for unity and quoted former prime minister John Howard’s mantra that the Liberal Party was a “broad church”, quipping “another pew or two” may be required.

The message to Coalition MPs came a day after an embarrassing loss for the government on the floor of parliament, after Labor teamed with the crossbench and disgruntled Nationals MPs to select rogue LNP MP Llew O’Brien as deputy speaker ahead of Mr McCormack’s pick, Damian Drum.

In question time, Anthony Albanese seized on calls for unity from veteran Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, who had earlier referenced a Bob Hawke quote, “if you can’t govern yourselves, you can’t govern the country”.

Asked if he agreed with Mr Andrews, the Prime Minister told parliament the government was united on the need for lower taxes, infrastructure, expanding trade opportunities and building dams.

Veterans’ Affairs Minister Darren Chester, responding to reports in The Australian on Tuesday about unrest in Nationals ranks over a party meeting held to coincide with the Melbourne Cup, said the party met regularly outside the cities to “focus on the communities we represent”.

The November 1 meeting in Nagambie, about two hours north of Melbourne, was held ahead of Derby Day and the Melbourne Cup. Senior Nationals MPs, including Mr McCormack and Mr Chester, accepted tickets from Tabcorp to attend the Cup.

“I had meetings with local veterans’ communities throughout the day leading up to it and then we had our party meeting where we discussed our strategy going forward as a party. I think that finished on the Friday,” Mr Chester told Sky News. “Then I went back to my electorate for three days and on my way to Melbourne to fly overseas I attended the Melbourne Cup for three hours on the first Tuesday of November. There’s a three-day gap between the two events you’re referring to.”

Mr Chester, a close ally of Mr McCormack, also called for the “temperature” inside the Nationals partyroom to be turned down.

Ahead of the Coalition joint partyroom meeting, The Australian revealed moderate Liberal MPs were furious with a directive issued to them by senior cabinet ministers to avoid clashes with the pro-coal rhetoric of Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan. Moderate Liberal MPs said they were unhappy with attempts to avoid “tensions” with pro-coal Nationals on climate change and energy policy.

“It is like appeasing a child who has a tantrum,” a Liberal MP said.

“This is what we have been doing for four years. The more they don’t get their way, the bigger the tantrum is.”

A spokeswoman for Mr McCormack, who has come under pressure in the past fortnight after narrowly defeating Mr Joyce in a leadership spill last week, on Tuesday confirmed he was “unfortunately unable to attend” next week’s Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety due to the “bushfire clean-up, recovery and rebuild process”. The spokeswoman said the government would instead send bureaucrats from the Department of Infrastructure and Transport and Assistant Road Safety Minister Scott Buchholz would remain in Australia to visit drought-affected areas in Queensland.

Mr McCormack had come under fire over plans to attend the summit, which includes the signing of a Stockholm declaration expected to endorse a 30km/h limit on suburban roads in response to “traffic injuries, air quality and climate change”.

The Nationals leader last month told The Australian that “lower travel speeds can result in lower emissions from vehicles” and the government supported slowing down cars in areas with “high volumes” of pedestrians, cyclists and aged or frail people.