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TRANSCRIPT
"We cannot be part - our party room has made it very clear. We cannot be part of a shadow ministry under Sussan Ley. We will sit by ourselves. We will sit and we will undertake what we have done. And I think we got a pretty good record. There's five policies on the books for the for the Coalition at the moment. All of those come from the National Party. So obviously, we'll continue to formulate policy, and we'll continue to get on representing the people that have put us there, but we will do that with the courage and conviction that we've been asked to do. We will not be forced to vote a way that we can, in all good conscience, not support....and that I would have thought is what the Australian people want of our elected officials."
That was Nationals leader David Littleproud announcing that his party is officially splitting with the Liberal party after a rift over hate speech laws led to a mass walkout of the Nationals frontbench.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley accepted the first three resignations but blocked the remaining eight, including Mr. Littleproud’s, in an attempt to keep the Coalition together.
Mr Littleproud says the Coalition is untenable because his party was forced into a vote without a joint party room meeting to scrutinize the complex national security legislation.
He says three Nationals senators were asked to resign from their portfolios yesterday because they did not vote to support the bill.
"But I sent a letter advising Sussan Ley that if she accepted those resignations, because it would not be appropriate to, considering the circumstances we had, then the entire ministry would resign. We are not offering our resignation for her to accept, we are tendering our resignation."
Senator Bridget McKenzie was among the first three National politicians to exit the Shadow Cabinet, resigning alongside colleagues Ross Cadell and Susan McDonald.
She is attributing the move to the bill being rushed through without sufficient expert advice
“The room came to the decision it could not support the bill as drafted because of the unintended consequences and the lack of expert advice we had received prior to Parliament being forced into a vote. So the Leader of the Opposition was told, once the three senators in her shadow ministry tendered our resignations, that if she chose to accept that the entire National Party shadow ministry would be also tendering their resignation."
While Ms McKenzie and her colleagues are walking away, she is insisting the blame for the fracture lies within the Liberal party leadership.
"So, we have all made it very, very clear that we are coalitionists. This is a decision for Sussan Ley and this is obviously something that she is going to have to be considering."
Adding his two cents from the crossbench, former National-turned-One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce says that the current Coalition breakdown is pure chaos.
"If you cross the floor and you're in cabinet under the Westminster system, you offer your resignation. That is what you're supposed to do, but you don't blow the whole show up so that Australia as a nation doesn't have a competent opposition to forensically go through the policy that has been brought forward, might I say, by a socialist, leaning government. So, this process by Mr. Littleproud is totally and utterly chaotic."
However, despite his criticisms, Mr. Joyce is backing the National party's rejection of the hate speech laws.
He says that the legislation, in its current form, will carry a 15-year prison sentence.
According to him, the laws will threaten the most fundamental principles of press freedom and public discourse in Australia.
While Joyce warns of the personal toll of switching parties, likening it to a "divorce," at the same time he is suggesting the Nationals are becoming politically irrelevant, paving the way for a One Nation surge
"Maybe they're on a recruitment drive from One Nation. Maybe that's what's happening here. Of course, it's going to help us. I have to break it to you, One Nation's got massively higher membership than the Nationals, and we stand in every seat in the city and in the regional areas. So you've basically made yourself politically irrelevant, or National's politically irrelevant."
Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the ongoing turmoil in the Coalition shows the opposition is collapsing.
He says Ms Ley is on borrowed time after mass resignations from the Nationals.
"Well, the Coalition's a smoking ruin. You know, it's a three ring circus. It's not an alternative government. They can't stand each other, they can't work together. They're divided, they're dysfunctional, and they're divisive. And I think what's happened this week is that they've put internal politics before public safety, and we're seeing the repercussions from that. Today is not a day for internal politics. Today is a somber day. It's a day to unite as Australians in grief, in resolve and In solidarity."
According to Dr Chalmers, the internal division in the Coalition is evidence that the Liberals and the Nationals are in a race to the bottom.
"You've got Libs and the Nats and One Nation wannabes... and the Coalition isn't just losing members, it's losing the plot, and they are all engaged in one way or another in this kind of unedifying race to the far right. And I think what makes it unedifying is seeing Libs and Nats crawling all over themselves, just to be a paler shade of orange. I thought those scenes in the Senate earlier in the week were extraordinary, even by the very low standards of this Coalition. No wonder they can't string a coherent sentence together on the economy. They are focused exclusively on each other."
