Why the Nationals and Liberals coalition partnership collapsed

You would have seen the news that the Coalition is no longer a coalition.

The Liberal Party and the Nationals have parted ways after National Party Leader David Littleproud announced the party was walking away from the Coalition agreement for the first time in 38 years.

But what led to the break up and which party will now become the official opposition party*?

WHAT IS THE COALITION?
While the Liberal Party and the Nationals have always been two separate political parties, they have worked together in parliament since 1945 in what is known as a coalition. A coalition usually involves parties sitting next to each other in the House of Representatives* and the Senate* and voting along the same lines while still holding their own party meetings and electing their own leaders.

HAS THE COALITION SPLIT BEFORE?
The Liberal and National parties have worked together for more than 80 years in coalition, but this week wasn’t the first time the two parties have parted ways.

The last split occurred in 1987 when Queensland National Party premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen ran a campaign to become prime minister. The parties also split in 1972.

WHY DID IT SPLIT THIS TIME?
Both leaders have blamed each other’s parties for the failure to lock in a new partnership agreement following the Coalition’s recent election loss, where the Labor Party won a landslide victory and the Liberal Party Leader Peter Dutton was voted out of his own seat in parliament.

The Nationals have said the Liberals rejected four key policies — a claim new Liberal leader Sussan Ley has rejected.

In her remarks, Ms Ley said her former Coalition colleagues “sought specific commitments on certain policies” and that “our perspective is not about the individual policies themselves, but the approach that we said we would take to our party room* about policies”.

Ms Ley said the Liberals “offered to work constructively with the Nationals, and we asked for that respect in return, in good faith”.

“I proposed that we stand up a joint shadow ministry* consisting of Liberal Party shadow ministers and National Party shadow ministers, and that we go forward in a united way and that we then work separately on policies … in our separate party rooms and come together articulating* what those policies are at the right time, over the course of the next term,” she said. “And the Nationals did not agree to that approach.”

WHAT POLICIES DID THEY DISAGREE ON?
The National Party’s leader in the Senate, Bridget McKenzie, said her party had wanted guarantees on divestiture* powers, nuclear power*, a proposed regional Australia fund and telecoms coverage*.

“Policies that we had fought for, that only a few weeks ago, we fought an election on,” she said.

WHICH PARTY IS THE OPPOSITION?
At the time of reporting, the Coalition’s split means the Liberals will hold 28 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives while the Nationals will hold 15.

As a result, Ms Ley has declared the Liberal Party the “official Opposition” and said she would unveil a new all-Liberal shadow cabinet.

The Nationals will sit independently in the new parliament.

“A new shadow ministry will be drawn from the Liberals in the upcoming days, and obviously I will be saying more about that at the time,” Ms Ley said.

But Ms Ley added she wanted to “work very closely with the Nationals, and they want to work very closely with us”.

“We will co-operate in the parliament in processes, in everything that allows us to bring together the very strong areas of public policy, of philosophy*, but most importantly of values that we share as we do go forward and as somebody who represents rural and regional Australia,” Ms Ley said.

HOW HAVE SENIOR POLITICIANS REACTED?
Former Liberal Party leader and Coalition Prime Minister from March 1996 to December 2007, John Howard has pleaded for the Coalition to reunite*, declaring their partnership “the glory days” for both parties.

Speaking on Sky News on Tuesday night, Mr Howard said he was “very deeply sorry” that the separation had happened.

“I urge both parties to work overtime to put the Coalition back together again, because all the history of Australia suggests that the glory days of the Liberal Party and the National Party, the old Country Party, are when they are working together in government.

“My experience as a Liberal leader and as a Coalition prime minister is that when you have a strong Coalition and plenty of trust, you can resolve many policy differences.”

POLL

GLOSSARY

• opposition party: the party or group with the greatest number of non-government members in the House of Representatives
• House of Representatives: the Lower House of parliament, made up of 150 members, each representing on of the country’s 150 electorates. The lower house forms government, proposes bills and debates and represents the interests of people in their electorates
• Senate: the Upper House of parliament, a house of review where 76 senators representing the states and territories vote on bills introduced and passed by the House of Representatives
• party room: a space in Parliament House where a political party meets
• joint shadow ministry: where each party in the coalition shares the role of shadow ministers, an opposition version of the ruling party’s minister who critiques their ruling party counterpart
• articulating: expressing in words
• divestiture: selling off subsidiary businesses or investments, that is, smaller or less important businesses or investments owned by larger businesses
• nuclear power: energy generated by a nuclear reactor. As part of its election campaign, the Coalition promised to build seven nuclear power plants across the country
• telecoms coverage: access to mobile networks. Another campaign promise made by the Coalition was to improve access to mobile networks and high speed internet across Australia, particularly for those in regional areas
• philosophy: way of thinking
• reunite: come together again

EXTRA READING
Pioneer wins Libs’ leadership duel
Albanese’s Labor scores landslide
Australia’s system of government

QUICK QUIZ
1. Who is the leader of the National Party?
2. When was the Coalition between the Liberals and the Nationals formed?
3. How many seats in the House of Representatives do the Liberals and the Nationals each hold?
4. How many seats would the coalition hold if it hadn’t split?
5. When was John Howard Prime Minister of Australia?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. What do you think?
Do you think that the Nationals should have split from the Coalition? Write a very convincing argument for or against. Use information from the story and maybe your research skills

Time: allow at least 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Civics and Citizenship

2. Extension
Do you think that a Coalition should be allowed to join together to form a government? Write a list of reasons why or why not.

Time: allow at least 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Civics and Citizenship

VCOP ACTIVITY
Creative vocabulary
Find a bland sentence from the article to up-level. Can you add more detail and description? Can you replace any ‘said’ words with more specific synonyms?

Have you outdone yourself and used some really great vocabulary throughout your writing? Firstly, well done. Secondly, let’s ensure everyone can understand it by adding a glossary of terms. Pick three of your wow words and create a glossary for each word to explain what it means.