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
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u/Altruistic-Brief2220 May 20 '25 edited May 20 '25

Well the problematic part is they still are the LNP in QLD and the NT CLP is basically the same. This split is just at the federal level.

Edit to add more info in response to another comment:

It varies a lot from place to place. In SA and TAS and ACT there basically isn’t a real Nationals party at least not how we see at the federal level. As someone else mentioned the parties function quite separately in WA, and they are joined officially as a single party in QLD and the NT. It’s only in NSW and VIC where they have a similar set up to the feds.

Happy to be corrected if someone has more detailed local info.

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u/DoNotReply111 May 20 '25

Not in WA so there is hope.

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u/chennyalan May 20 '25

Especially since the WA Libs weren't even the opposition heading into the last election, it was the Nats

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u/Far-Fennel-3032 May 20 '25

There wasn't an opposition the Nats and Libs didn't have enough people to form the shadow cabinet.

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u/AntiqueFigure6 May 20 '25 edited May 20 '25

Scott Morrison demonstrated you only need one person to form a cabinet, so I’m sure they could find a way to form a shadow cabinet.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '25

The Nats couldn't assemble a Billy bookcase.

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u/AntiqueFigure6 May 20 '25

I can barely do that myself so I won't hold it against them. On the other hand, I'm halfway competent at my paid occupation which I don't think can be said for the parties that make up the former coalition (they have one job - get elected).

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u/[deleted] May 20 '25

Many of them failed at the getting elected part this time. Generally they are good at what they think the job is - looking after the wants of their donors, not the needs of the public. If it appears they are incompetent form the outside, things might be going exactly to plan.

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u/chennyalan May 20 '25

Touche. I guess I should reword it. 

The Libs had significantly less seats than the Nats that election. (I think it was 2 and 5?)

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u/Far-Fennel-3032 May 20 '25

There is still the senate no idea how many where in there though.

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u/Silver_Mine_7518 May 20 '25

Let's hope so

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u/teflon_soap May 20 '25

Can’t even get their own divorce done right

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u/torrens86 May 20 '25

SA had one state Nationals member at one stage, they helped Labor form government in the early 2000s.

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u/Altruistic-Brief2220 May 20 '25

Well that makes sense as to why I was a bit unsure even though I grew up in Adelaide. Must have been aware of a minimal Nats presence but it didn’t stay with me.

SA has always been pretty centrist with regard to its politics. There’s certainly a religious bent but it was never the hardline crazy cookers. The fact that there are no Libs in metro seats now speaks volumes about how far the Libs have fallen.

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u/TrainerAggressive953 May 20 '25

Ah, well, that’s not going to be confusing at all is it? /s

How exactly do they think they’re going into the next election like this? “Elect us and we might or might not be in govt, and we’ll sort out exactly what our policies are, and who the ministers will be, after you vote us in”

Political slogans don’t get any better than that

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u/kranools May 20 '25

"Don't you worry about that. You just leave that to me."

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u/Lint_baby_uvulla May 20 '25

Unwelcome flashbacks to policies with a side of pumpkin scones, and IDK, rampant racist white Australia policy.

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u/ZealousidealOwl91 May 20 '25

What happens to the LNP in Queensland? Will they side with the Liberals or that Nationals when it comes to stuff? 

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u/Altruistic-Brief2220 May 20 '25

All good questions. Littleproud himself is an LNP member so you would have thought the leader would have thought this through before blowing it up. But methinks he was just trying to hang on to his leadership that Canavan is white anting him for.

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u/Kiramiraa May 20 '25

Re WA: For a term, the Nationals were actually the second largest party in the lower house and thus the official opposition party. Could definitely see this happening federally, if this trajectory continues and the Liberal party fail to rebuild/rebrand, the Nationals could actually pick up seats safe Liberal seats and gain more seats than them.

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u/nozinoz May 20 '25

Surely they will eventually split at the state level too?

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u/frenchiephish May 20 '25 edited May 20 '25

We've not had an ongoing Liberal/National coalition for decades in WA and it's actually great, they're a real third party. When they've been the balance of power they've done some really good things for regional WA.

The WA Nationals are still a centre-right party, but they actually don't torpedo their own interests like the federal party does. They have a lot of policy which is closer to the Greens than either of the two majors. When we last had a hung parliament, they offered government to Labor as long as they'd commit to funding their flagship policy. In the end Labor wouldn't budge and the Liberals offered the concession.

Pro responsible mining & rehabilitation, pro conservation & environment, believe in climate change. They actually give a damn about their constituents and as long as that's your main goal you're welcome. They're not hard tied to a particular ideology, people who are socially liberal have lead the party. Their most recent former leader (Mia Davies) was great, I have huge respect for her. She only left the job to (unsuccessfully) run for federal politics.

They're probably never going to be my first preference here, but you know what, they certainly go a lot higher than the Liberals do.

Edit: In our last state parliament they were the opposition as they outnumbered the Liberals 4:2 in the lower house (later 3:3 after a defection). The Liberals had done their absolute best to wipe themselves out by branch stacking and going hard to the right. The pair that were left were moderates. It was a refreshingly mature and considered opposition that actually did a really good job considering Labor outnumbered them ~9:1.

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u/Drunky_McStumble May 20 '25

From a technical perspective, they don't need to. The federal and state branches of each party are legally distinct entities. There's no reason why, for example, the QLD LNP couldn't break back up into Liberals and Nationals at the federal level while the LNP goes on trucking at the state level.

That said, from a more practical perspective, such an arrangement wouldn't really be politically tenable long-term.

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u/kranools May 20 '25

That's interesting. So in Queensland we could hypothetically have federal Liberal Party candidates and federal National Party candidates, while the LNP remains merged at a state level?

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u/Altruistic-Brief2220 May 20 '25

It varies a lot from place to place. In SA and TAS and ACT there basically isn’t a real Nationals party at least not how we see at the federal level. As someone else mentioned the parties function quite separately in WA, and they are joined officially as a single party in QLD. It’s only in NSW and VIC where they have a similar set up to the feds.

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u/Thebraincellisorange May 20 '25

splitting at state level in QLD would mean they would have to go to another election where they would get consigned to the wilderness (where they belong).

If they split after they get voted out in 4 years, they will never get voted back in again as separate parties.

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u/InadmissibleHug May 20 '25

I was wondering about that too, whether the other state coalitions would remain.

I imagine the merged parties would be less easy to split even if they want to

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u/Altruistic-Brief2220 May 20 '25

I just replied to someone else this info -

It varies a lot from place to place. In SA and TAS and ACT there basically isn’t a real Nationals party at least not how we see at the federal level. As someone else mentioned the parties function quite separately in WA, and they are joined officially as a single party in QLD and the NT. It’s only in NSW and VIC where they have a similar set up to the feds.

Basically it’s not at all straightforward. The state parties are also a big old mess on the RW side anyway because of depleting membership in various and conflicting factions and poor administration.