Nationals leader David Littleproud says joining Coalition now up to his partyroom

David Littleproud has left the door open to his partyroom rejecting the Liberals’ response to the Nationals’ four policy demands, declaring it is up to his colleagues ‘whether they wish to re-enter the Coalition or not’.

Nationals leader David Littleproud. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

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Nationals leader David Littleproud has left the door open to his partyroom rejecting the Liberals’ response to the Nationals’ four policy demands, declaring that it was up to his colleagues “whether they wish to re-enter the Coalition or not”.

Mr Littleproud, who was yet to organise a partyroom ­meeting as of Monday night, ­defended his ­actions in recent days that led to the Coalition splitting up for all of 48 hours, declaring he had “stared the Liberal Party down and … didn’t blink”.

“We want to be in a Coalition, but I’m not going to walk away from the values and principles of the people who sent me to ­Canberra,” Mr Littleproud told Sky News on Monday evening, after having a meeting with Ms Ley.

The Australian understands that while the Liberal partyroom agreed “in principle” last week to the Nationals’ four policy asks – which include nuclear energy, ­divestiture powers for supermarkets, improving telecommunications access in regional areas and investing in country Australia – Ms Ley brought a revised set of words to Mr Littleproud to caveat the policies.

Such revisions include that the $20bn set aside for the Regional Australia Future Fund be distributed “equitably”.

Mr Littleproud revealed that he had received the revisions from Ms Ley and would take the new “form of words” to the partyroom at some point this week.

“That’s something I’ll take to the partyroom … I’ve got those form of words that gives us comfort,” he said.

“So what I’ll do is finalise the rest of the negotiations with ­Sussan Ley, that’ll be presented to the partyroom and the partyroom will make their determination whether they wish to re-enter the Coalition or not in the ensuing days.”

Senior Liberal sources said the ball was “completely in Mr Littleproud’s court”, claiming it was up to the Nationals leader and his party whether they accepted Ms Ley’s response to the four policy demands.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

While Liberals were expecting the Coalition deal to be done by the middle of the week, Nationals sources said the matter might not be resolved until as late as next week, depending on the outcome of the partyroom meeting.

Despite Mr Littleproud declaring he was “relaxed” about his leadership, questions over whether or not he should remain in the role continued on Monday.

Former Nationals leader ­Barnaby Joyce, who had indicated he would prefer Michael ­McCormack to head up the party, said the handling of the Coalition agreement had been “a shocker”.

Mr Joyce also said the net-zero target should be dumped, exposing an ongoing split on the emissions reduction target within the Nationals. While Mr Littleproud denied any such split existed and said the Nationals had an agreed- upon “partyroom position”, he ­indicated that the policy would be up for review.

“Obviously during this period of parliament, like in the last period, we’ll continue to review some of those policies, including net zero,” he said.

“I think we’ve got to understand that the world’s finding it increasingly more difficult to achieve net zero by 2050.”

Some conservative Liberals such as Andrew Hastie have also revealed a willingness for net-zero targets to be reconsidered.