Unite or we lose election, Scott Morrison tells rebel Coalition MPs

Nationals MP Llew O’Brien is considering joining rebel MPs, despite Scott Morrison warning that a divided Coalition would lose the next election.

Llew O’Brien, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, has left the door open to joining coalition rebels as soon as next week. Picture: Gary Ramage

Nationals MP Llew O’Brien is considering joining a group of rebel MPs vowing to abstain from voting on government legislation over vaccine mandates, despite Scott Morrison warning that the Coalition would lose the next election if it were divided.

The Prime Minister stared down a backbench rebellion in the Coalition partyroom meeting on Tuesday, declaring Labor would “sneak into government” if MPs were not disciplined and united.

“If we surrender that, we surrender government,” Mr Morrison told MPs, according to Coalition sources

“It’s up to us whether we will allow Labor to take the reins of government.”

Mr O’Brien told The Australian he would consider abstaining on legislation if the Prime Minister did not secure a timeline from state governments on when vaccine mandates would end – a move that would further destabilise the Coalition’s command on the House of Representatives. .

“Any sort of a timeline needs to be established. There needs to be an end date on this stuff,” Mr O’Brien said. “I’m keeping a close eye on it. While I’m not in that (rebel) camp at the moment, I am not ruling any future action out.”

Mr O’Brien, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, left the door open to joining the rebels as soon as next week.

Scott Morrison told a Coalition partyroom meeting on Tuesday: ‘I can assure you we can win this election. I know the path from here to there.’ Picture: Gary Ramage

Liberal senators Alex Antic and Gerard Rennick are vowing to team up with One Nation to block contentious government legislation from passing the Senate until Mr Morrison takes action against state government-­imposed vaccine mandates.

As revealed by The Australian, Nationals MP George Christensen on Monday became the first lower house MP to join the rebellion by declaring the government could not be assured of his vote on legislation.

His first act of defiance on Tuesday was to abstain from a vote against a Labor-proposed amendment to the National Redress Scheme. The amendment, which was defeated, would have lifted the $200,000 cap on redress payments and criticised the government’s implementation of the scheme

After five Coalition senators crossed the floor on Monday to support a One Nation bill to ban vaccine mandates, Mr Morrison said every MP should ask themselves whether an action they were taking was helping the ­Coalition’s re-election prospects.

“I can assure you we can win this election. I know the path from here to there,” he told MPs, ­according to Coalition sources.

“And it comes with discipline, effort and focus that all colleagues know well. I know the path there, we can do it again. I need all of you to come there with me. I’m leaving nothing on the field between now and the next election.”

Mr Morrison told MPs they could choose to spend the next two sitting weeks in Canberra making the government stronger or putting a “smile on Labor’s face”.

The Coalition controls 76 out of 151 members in the House of Representatives and 36 of 76 members of the Senate.

If Mr Christensen and Mr O’Brien cross the floor in the lower house, the government would need the support of Labor or at least two crossbenchers to pass legislation.

In the Senate, the government would need the support of Labor or the Greens to pass legislation if Senator Antic and Senator Rennick join One Nation in abstaining from voting.

Mr Morrison has spoken to Senator Antic and Senator Rennick in an effort to convince them to drop their protest against the federal government over mandates imposed by the states.

The rebels believe there are several ways the federal government can pull the states into line, including through stopping them from accessing vaccine data from the Australian Immunisation Register.

The senators are maintaining their stance, with Senator Rennick accusing Mr Morrison of not wanting to stand up to the states.

Anthony Albanese accused Mr Morrison of not being able to control the Coalition partyroom.

“If you can’t govern your party, how can you govern the country?” the Opposition Leader said.

However, One Nation and senators Rennick and Antic voted with the government on Tuesday to prevent a Senate debate on Labor-backed legislation.

Independent senator Rex Patrick tried to take advantage of ­Coalition instability by moving to suspend standing orders to allow the debate of his bill to establish a federal anti-corruption commission. One Nation voted against the motion while the Coalition rebels allowed themselves to be paired with Labor senators who were not in Canberra.

The pairing of senators Antic and Rennick deadlocked the vote at 25 each side and prevented the motion from succeeding.