Nats-Libs spat: New coalition agreement expected within days

The two conservative parties are patching up their differences and are expected to sign a new agreement this week.

The Nationals and Liberal parties are expected to sign off on a new coalition agreement within days, little more than a week after the conservative parties announced their historic split.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said on Sunday the Liberal Party has given in-principle support for his party’s four “non-negotiable” policies in a commitment to nuclear power, divestiture laws for big supermarkets, a $20bn regional future fund and better telecommunications coverage for the regions, paving the way for a make-up.

Mr Littleproud met with Liberal leader Sussan Ley on Monday afternoon ahead of an expected announcement of a full shadow ministry drawn from both parties.

“Now, within a matter of days, we’ve been able to get the Liberal Party to appreciate the seriousness of this and how important in principle these policies are to us, that they went back to the table and they created a special party room meeting to discuss it and to understand that it’s so important that they’d give these policies to us,” he said.

Nationals MP Darren Chester said he expected the split to be resolved shortly, “bringing our complete focus to issues that matter to the communities”.

Gippsland MP Darren Chester is in favour of a quick resolution to his party’s fallout with the Liberals. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Mr Chester was outspoken in his criticism of his party’s break from the Liberals, warning that serving as a second opposition party would make it difficult to effect change for regional and rural Australians.

The political fallout has prompted questions about Mr Littleproud’s suitability as leader, but Mr Chester said there was no basis for these discussions.

“David’s leadership was contested after the election, as is normal practice, and he received the overwhelming support of the team,” Mr Chester said.

“We shouldn’t forget that the Nationals won all of the 15 seats they held going into the election at a time when our friends in the Liberal Party were losing seats across Australia. David’s leadership has been vindicated across Australia.”

Nicholls MP Sam Birrell said no one was canvassing to contest Mr Littleproud’s position – despite former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce publicly backing Michael McCormack if he ran for the job – and rejected the brief fallout with the Liberals as a distraction from bigger issues facing Australians.

“There’s no lack of focus from the party or from the members involved, particularly if you’re talking about flooding in NSW, or what’s going on in the regions just because we have a meeting about what we’re doing with the coalition agreement,” Mr Birrell said.