Even in a special parliamentary sitting week in response to the deadliest terrorist attack on Australian soil, the Nationals have managed to make the week all about themselves.
When three Nationals crossed the Senate floor to vote against the government’s hate laws, Opposition leader Sussan Ley was given few choices but to accept their resignations from the frontbench, given the Coalition’s rules on ‘cabinet solidarity’. But just hours after Bridget McKenzie, Susan McDonald and Ross Cadell left the shadow cabinet, all eight remaining frontbench National MPs also quit the ministry, including leader David Littleproud.
What happened next was inevitable.
Speaking with the media today, Nationals leader David Littleproud said the Coalition has split, again, because Opposition leader Sussan Ley had left them in an “untennable” position.
He said Ley was “aware of the consequences” when she accepted the initial first three resignations and must now live with them.
“I cannot stand by and have three courageous senators who put their jobs on the line for no reason that has any veracity whatsoever, to be disrespected,” Littleproud said.
“There’s no other position. Our party room has made it clear that we cannot be part of a shadow ministry under Sussan Ley.
“We made it very clear that there would be a consequence, that if Sussan accepted those resignations, then that consequence would be that the Coalition would be untenable.”
Was the move of the three Nationals Senators to defy party rules really all that courageous, as Littleproud claimed?
Was it really about taking a principled conscious vote, or rather about defying a leader few among the Nats ever had much respect for anyway?
And was Littleproud’s own leadership all that inspired, given he didn’t seem to be across just what those in his on party were doing?
Littleproud added that he had called Ley about 30 minutes before speaking with the media this morning to tell her the party room decision was final.
Also, he said the latest Coalition split wasn’t all Sussan Ley’s fault. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ultimately “put her in this process,” while Ley ultimately “mismanaged” the response.
The Nationals put themselves in this process, with the help of leadership mismanagement from both Ley and Littleproud, seeking a quick excuse to test Ley’s resolve on the solidarity issue and to make their next move in the ultimate game of ego.
“Had we let this go, we wouldn’t have been true to ourselves,” Littleproud told media.
True to what, exactly? Right, yourselves.