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After shattering decades-long political norms by walking away from the Coalition agreement, the Nationals are now preparing to unveil a wide-ranging frontbench with the party leader delivering a warning to those underestimating what it can achieve as a solo force.
“We’re going to broaden our horizons to not just be about regional Australia but to enter more robustly the national debate, and to make sure that our values can be seen by Australians for what they are,” David Littleproud said in an interview with SBS World News.
“We shouldn’t be pigeonholed as just the country cousins, we are a little broader than that and we’re a lot smarter than what people give us credit for.”
The party is in the process of allocating significant roles to its MPs and senators, with some members set to assume two or even three responsibilities across sectors such as treasury, foreign affairs, home affairs, and immigration.
Traditionally, the Nationals take on portfolio responsibilities for agriculture, resources and regional affairs but after the cleaving apart of the Coalition this week the Liberal Party is also preparing to unveil a shadow cabinet made up solely of its membership that will include divvying up the same roles.
While the arrangements are not entirely clear and some decisions are solely a matter for the prime minister, the Liberal Party is expected to be the official Opposition with additional pay and staff for its frontbenchers but the Nationals may have extra chances to raise issues in Question Time.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke to both leaders on his return from the Vatican City on Wednesday.
While David Littleproud and the Liberal leader Sussan Ley both say their doors are open to restart negotiations to re-form a Coalition, there are four policy areas that the Nationals want concreted into the secret agreement that is signed for the Coalition to be enacted.
They include a policy to lift the moratorium on nuclear power, a commitment on supermarket divestiture, mobile phone service in regional and remote areas and a $20 billion fund for regional investment.
Former Liberal leaders John Howard and Tony Abbott have advised the party to reunite swiftly to avoid becoming politically irrelevant.
“John Howard is someone I deeply respect but he’s been far removed from Canberra politics for some time and he’s been nowhere near the discussions and negotiations that the National Party has had with the Liberal Party,” Littleproud said.
“We are getting plenty of gratuitous advice about the past but this is about the present and this is about the future.”
Littleproud said the non-negotiable policies the Nationals wanted to embed in the deal would “change the lives” of regional communities and “in some cases save their lives”.
The Liberal Party is privately claiming to have written evidence that there was a fifth Nationals request that would have allowed Nationals politicians on the frontbench the ability to break shadow cabinet solidarity over policies they didn’t agree with.
SBS has not seen the document to independently verify this.
Littleproud maintains that the four published claims were the deal-breakers, but also pointing to the Nationals’ early decision to oppose the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum as an example where the party had already been prepared to go it alone. He did not deny there as a request to break shadow cabinet solidarity.
“It was her (Sussan) and her office that wanted to continue despite that, and we respected that,” he said.
“This wasn’t a timeline that was determined by us.”
Littleproud said the Nationals climate policies will continue to be a matter of robust internal debate and confirmed that includes whether the party will continue to back the net zero climate target by 2050.
He said the very public break-up could be resolved before parliament resumes in July but there was also no guarantee it would be dealt with in this three year term of parliament.
“There was no animosity. This wasn’t done in anger, this was done with sorrow,” Littleproud said, he had earlier revealed the meeting with Ley to confirm they were separating had ended with a hug.
“We’re sick of trying to just fight for a few scraps to make and change the lives of those people I represent,” he said.
“I couldn’t go back home and walk down the main street and look them in the eye and say ‘you know what, I’ve traded that away for political expedience’.”
