The federal Nationals will continue to contest seats against the Liberals and take their own policy positions, party director Scott Mitchell says.
Mr Mitchell said the Nationals had already started eyeing off long-held Liberal seats such as Indi in Victoria, which the Liberals lost to independent Cathy McGowan at the September election.
"We are two separate parties and we represent two separate constituencies," Mr Mitchell told the National Press Club in Canberra on Tuesday.
Mr Mitchell said the Nationals planned to contest between 20 and 30 seats at the next federal election, including a number of three-cornered contests.
The issue of the sale of GrainCorp to American firm Archer Daniels Midland divided the two coalition parties in recent months, but Treasurer Joe Hockey decided the sale was not in the national interest.
Some Liberal MPs have been critical of the Nationals publicly lobbying for Mr Hockey to block the sale.
Mr Mitchell said Mr Hockey's decision had been made in the national interest and recognised now was not the time for foreign companies to be able to buy "strategic assets" in Australia.
Asked whether the Nationals would support the coalition's paid parental leave policy, Mr Mitchell said it had yet to come to parliament or the party room.
"It is something we will work through," he said.
In his speech, Mr Mitchell said the 2013 election campaign had seen "the odd on the ground scrap" with the Liberals.
But it had been "the most seamless coalition campaign in our history", he said.
The final result was the highest primary vote for the Nationals since 1996.
Mr Mitchell said he would back a Liberal and Labor push for a review of the Senate voting system in the wake of gains by so-called micro-parties.
"It seems wrong to me that a Sports Party which only received 0.23 per cent of the vote could possibly stand a chance of getting a senator elected," he said of the initial Senate election result in Western Australia.
The party director described the Palmer United Party and Katter's Australia Party as "fringe groups" who only served to improve Labor's votes through the flow of preferences.
