Fractious Nationals factions now a grim reality for Scott Morrison

David Littleproud and Nationals leader Michael McCormack during question time. Picture: Gary Ramage

Scott Morrison’s ability to keep delivering on a key election promise to provide stable and unified government is being rapidly dismantled.

The Prime Minister now presides over a Coalition that has ­effectively split into four groupings: the Liberals, the inner-city urban Liberals, the Nationals and the radical Nationals.

The consequence of this fracturing is the denial of a platform for Morrison to articulate a clearly defined agenda for his government. To state the obvious, he is now being robbed of clear air amid a Byzantine turf war that is compounding an already diminished position for the government.

Deputy Speaker Llew O'Brien in the speaker's chair for the first time. Picture: AAP

The political prospects of the Morrison government could be in danger for the first time unless the Prime Minister can quickly and decisively take command of the situation.

The longer it goes on, the more entrenched the perception will become that the government is drifting at a time when the country is facing acute economic challenges.

In other words, Morrison needs to demonstrate to the electorate that his government is in control of events.

Time is on Morrison’s side but political management has become crucial.

He has now been forced to ­invest an incredible and unnecessary amount of time managing “the colleagues”, both inside his own partyroom and that of the junior Coalition partner.

Fortunately for Morrison, this is one of his strengths, which was demonstrated on Monday night when he brought Llew O’Brien into the tent and secured a written agreement of unwavering support.

Yet he now finds himself hostage to the same parody that John Howard was forced to deal with in his last term of government.

Illustration: Johannes Leak.

This is the potential political crisis that Morrison had not been expecting.

Ironically, the main source of the chaos is Barnaby Joyce.

In 2004, Joyce was the last senator­ elected from Queensland when the final count was in, giving the Coalition control of both houses for the first time since Menzies.

A blessing quickly became a curse when Howard, like Morrison now, was forced to devote much of his time to corralling and counselling the troops.

Joyce proved to be a thorn in the side of both the National Party and the Liberal Party, turning his position of power in the Senate into an ever-changing list of ­demands.

Within months of Mark Vaile taking over as Nationals leader in 2005, Joyce crossed the floor — while Vaile was overseas — on trade practices legislation, and continued to do so on a regular basis.

Joyce is now back threatening to cross the floor in the lower house, where Morrison has a one-seat majority, or two if one counts the Speaker.

Matt Canavan.

The problem for the Nats is that they need someone like Joyce. A “maddie” as some of his colleagues describe him, but one with cut-through and an ability to connect with regional voters as he rails against inner-city elites.

There is little doubt that Joyce and his backers will have a second tilt at Michael McCormack at some stage, but the idea that all will be fine after a change ignores the ­realities of Joyce.

If anything, the Nationals would become a more radical force inside the Coalition and their demands would become greater.

This could become a problem for Josh Frydenberg, who is becomin­g concerned about the surplus and the budget position.

If the art of leadership is weaving the competing interests of the Coalition together, Morrison has proven suitably capable.

This isn’t a unique task — the tensions inside the Coalition ­partyroom have been there for decades. Howard faced them. So did Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.

There is no magic formula for fixing it, however.

Morrison is now understandably infuriated that the Nationals felt the need to make a national embarrassment of themselves through an act of collective self-­indulgence on the day that Indone­sian President Joko Widodo was addressing the Australian ­parliament.