Nationals party fails to reach stance yet on Coalition agreement with Liberals in opposition

The Nationals have failed to reach a position yet on a future Coalition agreement with the Liberals in opposition at a meeting on Friday of their heads of state and federal branches.

Nationals leader David Littleproud, Kevin Hogan and Bridget McKenzie. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

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The Nationals have failed to reach a position on the Coalition agreement following a closed-door meeting on Friday between the heads of state and federal branches.

While the Liberals endured a thumping defeat at the election, the Nationals fared slightly better, losing their deputy leader from the Senate, Perin Davey, but retaining all lower house seats.

The outcome has sparked debate over whether the Nationals should remain in a Coalition with the Liberals, with MPs declaring that Sussan Ley would need to come up with a convincing offer and promise at least seven – rather than six – shadow ministry spots to the junior party.

Ms Ley confirmed on Friday that she and Nationals leader David Littleproud had a “good first meeting” but that more discussions were to come.

“It certainly won’t be the last (meeting),” she told Channel 7.

“I won’t talk about what we discussed. But I will say this, the thing that unites our partyroom and unites Liberals and Nationals is that we are here to work very hard for the Australian people, and that’s what drives me every single day.”

Nationals sources confirmed that the future of the Coalition agreement was discussed at the party’s federal management committee meeting on Friday, but that no position was landed on. Another meeting will take place next week.

Besides shadow cabinet spots, net-zero targets remain a point of contention between Liberals and Nationals, with some members of the junior party concerned over emission reduction policies.

Liberal MPs are also alive to the need for the party to win back inner-city seats if it is ever to return to government, with an internal debate over net zero likely to damage chances of doing so.

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie said her party had “always been very strong” on ensuring net-zero policies didn’t have adverse social, economic or environmental impacts. “Our job is to mitigate and make sure that our communities aren’t bearing the brunt, the negative impact of those decisions,” she told Sky News.

Nationals deputy leader Kevin Hogan said the party was yet to decide on whether it would sign a Coalition agreement.

“We won’t sign it just to sign it,” he said.

“There’s a lot of different asks and requests that we’ll have … so we go in with the intention, but there’s certainly a scenario where it doesn’t get signed.”