Nationals and Liberals play a blame game that can have no winner

Tensions are mounting within the Coalition leadership as the Nationals rebellion continues to frustrate Scott Morrison and damage Michael McCormack, building a dangerous sense of mistrust and subtle blame shifting at the top.

What started as long-simmering resentment on the Nationals backbench has spread in just two weeks — dividing the party, damaging the Coalition’s frontbench standing, destabilising the Deputy Prime Minister, angering the Prime Minister and infecting the Liberals.

There is now a recognition and fear that the destabilisation in the Nationals could take an even more unpredictable and uncontrollable turn, threatening the Coalition balance and defeating government legislation.

Given the core Nationals’ complaint is that Michael McCormack has allowed Scott Morrison to dictate the rural and regional agenda, it is in McCormack’s interest to promote the view he has fought back and it is in Morrison’s interest to distance himself from McCormack’s perceived failings.

The blame game within the Nationals has spread to the Nationals blaming the Liberals and the Liberals blaming the Nationals. It is a vicious cycle that can’t help the Coalition.

This undermines the very sense of the co-operative Coalition that has worked so well in the past, with Liberal prime ministers advising their Nationals partners and leaving room for public, differentiating fights over less-consequential issues to satisfy rural egos and blood lust.

Liberal MPs were angered on Tuesday when told they weren’t to provoke mutinous Nationals — an extension of Morrison’s restraint and reconciliation — even as the rebels continued to publicly taunt Liberals.

As a result, Morrison was forced to make the humiliating, plaintive and often-disregarded “call for unity” directed at the Nationals in the Coalition partyroom meeting, and Josh Frydenberg, as deputy Liberal leader and Treasurer, backed him.

“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 is focused on them. That’s the contract we have with the Australian people,” he said.

The bizarre element of this leaders’ call was that it was directed not at the Liberal MPs — who been told to remain silent — but at the Nationals, who are not Morrison’s responsibility.

This drew the PM into the internecine war and reinforced the Liberals’ view that Nationals are hurting the government, and the Nationals’ view that Liberals are telling them what to do.