‘Stupid move’: Howard lashes Coalition split as Nationals leave Ley to go it alone

Former prime minister John Howard has damned the Coalition’s split as a stupid move that threatens to deepen the differences between the two parties after Nationals leader David Littleproud made the dramatic decision to ditch the partnership for the first time in 38 years.

Liberal leader Sussan Ley insists her party can forge ahead as the federal opposition, despite being left with just 28 seats in this month’s historic election wipeout, while the Nationals will sit alone and forfeit higher salaries on a matter of principle after negotiations between the parties reached a deadlock.

Littleproud announced on Tuesday the Nationals would leave the Coalition over the Liberals’ refusal to enshrine nuclear power and three other demands in a new agreement, delivering a blow to Ley just a week into her leadership.

But Ley said she was determined that the Liberals take their time to get policies right after losing dozens of seats over the last two elections. She will appoint a shadow ministry comprised solely of Liberals to rebuild the party’s offering to city voters who have deserted it.

“The shadow ministers that I appoint from that party room will be well-equipped and incredibly capable to take the fight up to Labor right up until the next election,” Ley said at a Canberra press conference on Tuesday, hours after Littleproud announced the split.

“While I have enormous respect for David and his team, it is disappointing that the National Party has decided today to leave the Coalition.”

The policy commitments the Nationals wanted in the Coalition agreement:

• A commitment to establish a $20 billion Regional Australia Future Fund.
• A commitment to legislate federal divestiture powers that could break up big businesses, like supermarkets, that abuse market power.
• A Universal Service Obligation to guarantee telecommunications companies provide mobile coverage across Australia.
• A commitment to lift Australia’s ban on nuclear energy.

She said another point of contention was that the Nationals had not agreed to maintain shadow cabinet solidarity, which binds the Coalition to holding official joint-party positions.

Both leaders said they would keep working together with a hope of reuniting by the next election. But Nationals MPs said any regrouping would be up to the Liberal Party as they were unwilling to budge on lifting the nuclear moratorium, as well as divestiture powers for supermarket chains, a $20 billion regional future fund, and service obligations for regional areas.

The split will weaken the federal opposition when they return to parliament under an expanded Labor government. The Liberals will hold 28 lower house seats and the Nationals 15, compared with Labor’s 94-seat majority. Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Tuesday described the Coalition as “little more than a smoking ruin”.

Howard described it as “a stupid move” on Nine’s A Current Affair. ”There are always policy differences within and between the two parties,” he said in separate comments to this masthead.

“Both sides should work hard to put the Coalition back together, long before the next election, but it won’t come back without a lot of effort. The problem of remaining too far apart for too long is that attitudes harden and differences become deeper.”

However, on ACA, Howard backed the Nationals’ tough stance on nuclear, saying “it would be appalling if the Coalition would walk away from nuclear power”.

Howard was the Liberal leader when the Coalition last split in 1987 over then Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s push to run for prime minister.

Littleproud said it was “one of the hardest political decisions of my life” and conceded his party would not have the numbers to block legislation. But he said the split allowed Nationals MPs to stand by their principles and the policies they took to the election, while giving the Liberals clear air to rebuild and decide on their direction.

“We remain committed to having the door open, respecting the position that Sussan has been put in, that she is a leader that needs to rebuild the Liberal Party,” he said.

Nationals leader David Littleproud announces the split with the party’s Senate leader Bridget McKenzie and deputy leader Kevin Hogan.Credit: AAP

“They are going on a journey of rediscovery and this will provide them the opportunity to do that without the spectre of the National Party imposing their will.”

But Ley said she did not see the Nationals as a shackle on the Liberals. “I really believe that the Coalition is stronger together. I am a committed Coalitionist,” she said.

The leaders spent the past week negotiating – including in Albury, where Ley had travelled to spend time with her mother, who died on Saturday – before the Nationals decided to leave on Tuesday.

Ley had offered to stand up a joint shadow ministry with the Nationals, but asked Littleproud to respect her party’s policy processes. “Our approach [is] nothing adopted and nothing abandoned,” she said. “The Nationals do not agree to that approach.”

Liberal leader Sussan Ley and former prime minister John Howard.Credit: AAP, Getty Images

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie said regional Australians had voted for its policies just three weeks ago. “We’ve fought hard for these wins,” she said.

“We want to build on those policies to take to the next election, not have to re-prosecute them as part of a newly [constituted] Coalition. That’s why we’ve left the Coalition.”

Asked whether the break could be permanent, she said: “That’s a matter for the Liberal Party.”

Both opposition parties will appoint their own spokespeople on policy issues, but the Liberals as the bigger group will be the official opposition. Nationals MPs will lose benefits such as higher salaries that come from shadow ministry positions.

A Coalition split had been raised in the immediate aftermath of the May 3 election, when the Nationals fared better than the Liberals, keeping all their seats while the Liberals suffered their worst defeat since the party was founded. It will hold as few as nine of the country’s 88 metropolitan electorates, triggering a crisis about its purpose and path forward.

Moderate Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie said she preferred to remain in a joint party room, but the split would give the Liberal Party the chance “to do the hard, humble work we must do”.

“We lost a number of exceptional Liberal members of parliament in the last election. I’m mindful that the Nationals did not, and they are holding on to those policies that they feel got them that result at last election,” she said on the ABC.

Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce agreed both parties needed a period of self-reflection after an “electoral car crash”.

“This gives both parties a chance to talk to our core constituencies,” he said. “I doubt very much this is in perpetuity.”

The right-leaning Institute of Public Affairs said the split could strengthen both parties if it led to a considered rebuilding based on values of mainstream Australians. “It will fail if it descends into base political horse-trading,” said deputy executive director Daniel Wild.

“The intellectual cupboard has been bare on the centre-right for some time, as sheeted home by the 2025 election result. Now is the time to rebuild the centre-right’s intellectual horsepower.”

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