The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, says the federal Coalition is now “untenable”, blaming Sussan Ley for this week’s damaging split with the Nationals, as Liberal MPs say the opposition leader’s position is badly weakened by the chaos.
Wednesday’s resignation by three Nationals shadow ministers quickly escalated, with Littleproud and the party’s entire frontbench walking out. Littleproud confirmed on Thursday the party would sit separate from the Liberals when parliament resumes, ending decades of partnership.
Already under pressure over poor polling and a messy first six months in the job, Ley could face a challenge as soon as February. Liberals speaking on the condition of anonymity conceded a challenge by Angus Taylor or Andrew Hastie was increasingly inevitable due to the Coalition split.
One Liberal MP said Ley’s position was “extremely difficult going forward”.
“She will have to fight now,” they told Guardian Australia.
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Former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull was blunt, telling ABC radio the Coalition fight was “just making them more unelectable than they were before”.
“The bottom line is this: the Liberal party, to form government, needs to have the National party because it needs to have those regional seats,” he said.
“It also needs to win back seats in the city, which had been thought to be their biggest problem, but now they’ve lost the National party.
“But I think when they survey the scene, it looks like just a smouldering wreckage, doesn’t it?”
Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, who defected to One Nation in December, slammed Littleproud, his onetime rival.
“Mr Littleproud’s process was totally and utterly chaotic and now we have in Australia today chaos because of it,” he said.
The mass exodus came after the Liberal leader’s decision to accept the resignation of the Nationals senators Ross Cadell, Bridget McKenzie and Susan McDonald, after the trio crossed the floor to oppose hate speech laws drafted after the Bondi massacre.
The stance, which the Nationals adopted as a party room, put them at odds with the Liberals and the position agreed at shadow cabinet.
Littleproud said he had tried to engage in “good faith”, but blamed Ley for accepting the resignations.
“This process wasn’t all Sussan Ley’s fault. Anthony Albanese put her in this process. But it has been mismanaged by Sussan Ley,” he said.
“She was aware of the consequences if she did that, the National party were being forced into an untenable position, and she still made that decision. This is not what we wanted.
“We’re not offering a resignation for [her] to accept or not. We are tendering our resignation.”
Ley told Littleproud and his ministers to reconsider on Wednesday night, insisting the eight additional resignations received after crisis talks were unnecessary.
She urged Littleproud “not to walk away from the Coalition”.
Asked by a journalist whether this was a threat, Littleproud said: “No, it’s done, I spoke to Sussan Ley half an hour ago.”
Ley released a statement shortly after the press conference, calling for focus to remain on the day of mourning for the victims of the Bondi terror attack.
“Today the focus must be on Jewish Australians, indeed all Australians, as we mourn the victims of the Bondi terrorist attack,” she said.
“This is a national day of mourning and my responsibility as leader of the opposition and leader of the Liberal arty is to Australians in mourning.”
The Nationals MP Anne Webster, one of the eight who resigned from the shadow frontbench, told ABC TV on Thursday that Ley left the junior Coalition partner with “no alternative”.
On why the Nationals had made this announcement on the national day of mourning, Webster said they wanted to get it done early.
“Today is a day of significance, and we are very cognisant of the fact that this separation really happens in the morning because we don’t want it to crash into the 7.01pm minute of silence tonight,” she said.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, claimed Ley was on “borrowed time”, speaking to ABC RN Breakfast before Littleproud announced the split.
“They’re divided, they’re divisive, they’re dysfunctional, they can’t stand each other, they can’t work together. I think Sussan Ley’s obviously on borrowed time, but to be fair to her, all of the alternatives to Sussan Ley in the Coalition are worse.”
The Coalition briefly split after the May election, after the National party had tried to strong-arm Ley into signing on to a deal that would make nuclear policy, a regional future fund and powers to break up supermarkets part of the Coalition’s policy platform.
The two leaders returned to the negotiating table in 48 hours, and the Coalition reunited one week later.
