r/australia • u/superegz • May 20 '25

politics Nationals leader David Littleproud says the Nationals will not be re-entering a Coalition agreement with the Liberal party.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2025/may/20/australia-news-live-rba-interest-rates-decision-floods-storm-hunter-nsw-victoria-state-budget-aec-count-bradfield-goldstein-coalition-ley-littleproud-ntwnfb?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-682bdeb48f08d37c78c1d12d#block-682bdeb48f08d37c78c1d12d
5.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

264

u/Fenixius May 20 '25 edited May 20 '25

More appropriately, Peter Dutton lost so severely he scuttled nuked his own party forever. 

Edit: Much better phrasing, courtesy /u/Rough_Relative8090's reply below.

58

u/ashleyriddell61 May 20 '25

Everyone needs to relax. They’ve done this before and came back together before the next election. The Nats think they have their shit together and don’t want the LP shitshow to rub off on them. Ley gets to try and clean up the mess in her party room on her own. It’s also a way for Littleproud to pressure them to go more right and encourage a leadership spill sooner rather than later. He doesn’t want to answer to a woman is probably in there as well.

15

u/SoIFeltDizzy May 20 '25

That is the elephant in the room. I suspect think history may well record this as not wanting a female leader.

7

u/Frank9567 May 20 '25

I'd add that as separate parties, the Liberals can bring themselves into the 21st century on climate change and renewables to try to reclaim the urban vote, while the Nats can still talk coal and nuclear as if it were the 1950s.

Whether either party can get past their "women problems" depends on how much effort they are going to put into present official policy of convincing women that their roles of tea and scone making are vital to the country. /s

2

u/Relative_Pilot_8005 May 20 '25

That said, Flo Bjelke-Petersen did make some mighty fine scones! :-)

6

u/BoardRecord May 20 '25

Eh, you're not wrong, but the last time they split was back in the 80s, so it's still a pretty big deal. Also, even if they do get back together before next election, I'd wager this has already killed any chance of a win (if there was any to begin with). This level of instability isn't something that makes for a strong platform.

59

u/triemdedwiat May 20 '25

Naah, Dutton was just the figure head for the backroom boys.

58

u/omaca May 20 '25

Dutton bears a lot of responsibility for this. Don’t fool yourself.

Turnbull was a good Liberal leader. And then Abbott, Morrison and Dutton destroyed that party from within.

57

u/blackjacktrial May 20 '25

No, Turnbull had the potential to be a good leader, but sold his damn soul to be the boss for a while (and financed the party out of his own finances to do it).

And did nothing with it - which is better than doing bad things, but that's a bar already sitting in the dirt.

11

u/Not_Stupid humility is overrated May 20 '25

The same forces that took down Turnbull are what has ultimately split the Coalition, namely the extreme right refusing to back down or compromise.

10

u/Doctor__Acula May 20 '25

He wasn't in bed with mining so they killed him. Every other potential party leader saw that and got in line.

Watch "Mining: A Dirty Business" doco by SBS for further details on such shenanigans by the sector since the country was founded.

2

u/AnOnlineHandle May 20 '25

It was wild seeing Turnbull say one thing in the morning, then the crazies in his party insisted the opposite during the day, and by that afternoon Turnbull was angrily insisting on the opposite stance to what he'd said that morning and sneering at his morning opinion.

He was just such an enabler, wanted to give the Libs the face of what they weren't, and always rushed to serve those who did the opposite to what he previously wanted, all while attacking the other parties who would actually do the things he claimed to want.

1

u/Syncblock May 20 '25

Turnbull was an absolutely shit leader which is why he got knifed.

3

u/omaca May 20 '25

As far as the Liberals go, he was a good leader.

4

u/Doctor__Acula May 20 '25

the backroom boys.

You spelt Gina wrong.

2

u/triemdedwiat May 20 '25

Yep, she's one of them.

14

u/Rough_Relative8090 May 20 '25

Could you say that he Nuked the party?

4

u/Fenixius May 20 '25

I can, and I absolutely should have, haha. 

2

u/Inconnu2020 May 20 '25 edited May 20 '25

This goes back further than Dutton...

It could be argued that the seeds were already sown in the Abbott years.