2025 federal election: Nationals held ground but leadership spill imminent

The party for regional Australia has upped its representation in a much diminished Coalition opposition.

The Nationals have held their ground at the federal election in the Lower House and could stick with their controversial nuclear policy, but may be forced to search for a new deputy leader.

The party “for regional Australians” appears to have lost New South Wales senator and deputy leader Perin Davey, as Labor looks set to grow its Senate seats from 24 to 28, while the Coalition slides from 30 to 26.

Senate counting is still underway. Regardless of Ms Davey’s fate, an automatic leadership spill occurs after every election in line with Nationals party convention.

It is understood current Nationals leader David Littleproud will nominate for the role once again and has strong support within party ranks to retain the title.

Mr Littleproud’s rival and two-time former party leader Barnaby Joyce, who contested for the leadership role three years ago, is out of the race after ending weeks of silence on a prostate cancer diagnosis on Monday. He underwent surgery this week.

If re-elected as party leader, Mr Littleproud will decide on frontbench positions for Nationals MPs, the share of which are expected to increase given the party’s larger proportion within the Coalition. At the time of writing, the Coalition has been reduced from 54 to 39 seats, with 15 won by Nationals.

While the Nationals were unable to reclaim the NSW electorate of Calare from defector Andrew Gee, who was re-elected as an independent, the party held onto every other Lower House seat and could claim a 16th in Bendigo if Andrew Lethlean pulls off a surprising defeat of Labor’s Lisa Chesters.

Nationally the party witnessed a notional swing in its favour of 0.5 per cent, but it will now have to fight that bit harder to make the wishes of regional Australians heard in a much diminished Coalition opposition up against an emboldened Labor government with 85 Lower House seats.

Re-elected Nicholls MP Sam Birrell said one positive to come from a shocking electoral defeat was the Greens potentially losing all four Lower House seats.

“The fact they’re (Labor) governing in their own right is a good thing, they won’t be looking over their shoulder at the Greens and running to the left,” Mr Birrell said.

He said the Coalition’s nuclear energy policy “was a difficult one to make” but the Nationals did not force their Liberal colleagues into adopting it, and he did not think it cost the Coalition votes.

“The feeling in both parties was, yes it was a difficult one, but it’s the right policy option. I know there’s been debate about how the policy was sold, and Labor ran a deceitful campaign about how much it will cost, (but) I’m not sure whether nuclear was as big an issue as some of the other things. I think we need an honest conversation about how we manage the energy transition,” Mr Birrell said.

Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie has also backed nuclear as the party’s energy choice going forward. “I’ve been a huge fan of nuclear and (for) the National Party it’s been a policy position for over a decade for us,” she said.