The crossbench is as big as the opposition. How will parliament work?

The Nationals will sit on a supersized crossbench with teals, a Green and a mix of other independents and minor parties as leader David Littleproud vows he will press Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to give the grab-bag of MPs more questions when parliament returns.

Federal parliament’s crossbench will be as big as the Liberal Party’s opposition after the Nationals walked away from a Coalition deal on Tuesday, leaving the allocation of parliamentary questions, staff and pay to be decided by the Albanese government.

The crossbench in the House of Representatives will be larger than ever because of the split between the Nationals and Liberal Party. Credit: Artwork: Matt Davidson

The unprecedented structure of the House of Representatives will shift power dynamics and put the Liberal Party’s ability to be an effective opposition in doubt as it is at risk of having fewer opportunities to scrutinise the government.

In 2022, Leader of the House Tony Burke amended standing orders to give the 16 crossbenchers priority call on the fifth, 13th and 21st questions in question time – a major increase from the Morrison government era when independents had one or two opportunities a week to grill the government.

The Nationals joining the crossbench means there could be 30 independents or minor party members, compared to the 28 Liberals in the lower house. Final numbers are dependent on the outcome of seats still too close to call.

Littleproud said on Wednesday that allocating more questions to a larger crossbench in 2022 had set a precedent and would argue for the Nationals to get the same treatment.

“Obviously, there’s precedent in the last parliament around the number of questions that were split across those on the cross and opposition benches,” he said in Canberra.

“So why wouldn’t we [advocate for more questions]? I don’t think that’s an unreasonable expectation.”

However, Albanese said he did not see a case for people to be rewarded for a political split, raising doubts about resourcing, question allocation and pay.

“It is not reasonable that there be more staff or a reward for the fact that this division has occurred,” he said on Wednesday afternoon.

“I’ll have discussions with both Sussan Ley and David Littleproud about that, as well as the crossbenchers. We haven’t sorted out ministerial staff yet, so there’s some time to go in that.”

Nationals members also confirmed they would have shadow spokespeople in all major portfolios such as treasury, foreign affairs and infrastructure, and would announce the positions this week.

This means there will be three separate opposition spokespeople per portfolio from the Liberals, Nationals and Greens.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie went a step further, arguing the size of the crossbench meant it was possible for them to form opposition.

“This is as much a matter now of the rise of the crossbench as it is about the demise of the Liberal Party and if the crossbench is bigger than the Liberal Party then just maybe it could be the federal opposition, which interestingly would make David Littleproud the opposition leader,” he said.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie.Credit: Rhett Wyman

“It could be argued a crossbench looking like this is no more unlikely than the Liberal and National being in coalition, given the huge difference between those two parties.”

The Coalition splitting in 1972 and 1987 did not have the same sense of external crisis, Australian National University historian Frank Bongiorno said, making the structure of the 48th parliament unprecedented.

“There’s no obvious precedent here because the last Coalition blow-up was in 1987, which was in a lead-up to an election,” Bongiorno said.

“Under the table the NSW Nationals were still co-operating with the Liberals, which I believe then-opposition leader John Howard confirmed in one of his memoirs. Victorian Nationals were doing it too – they were doing their best to manage the fallout as the split was because of Queensland.

“And in 1972, there wasn’t a sense of crisis between the non-Labor, centre-right parties which we have now.”

Joel Fitzgibbon, former chief government whip for the Labor Party, echoed this sentiment, adding that principle would dictate that everyone got a share of questions proportionate to party size in the chamber.

“There’s no rule book, so it’s all a matter of convention and there’s no convention here,” he said.

“In dealing with the challenges ahead, the prime minister will have to stick rigidly to the principles that guide our parliamentary democracy.”

Burke will set the parliament’s question allocation, as conversations are ongoing.

“The share of questions in parliament always reflects the numbers in the parliament,” a spokesperson for Burke said.

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