Dissecting the implosion of the Coalition has become a full-time occupation for Liberals and Nationals alike, as MPs on both sides of the divide sift through a week of recriminations, rumours and strategic misfires that culminated in the second split between the two parties in less than a year.
“If anyone tells you they know exactly what’s going on, they’re probably lying,” one senior Liberal said, summing up the mood inside a party room awash with gossip and second-guessing.
Speculation about leadership manoeuvres is now constant, as it always is after a political rupture. Some insist Angus Taylor has secured promises of key portfolios should he return to the top job. Others claim rival camps are quietly testing the numbers. One Nationals MP confidently predicted Taylor would be leader within weeks. Liberals roll their eyes at such certainty.
Amid the swirl of intrigue, scrutiny has fallen squarely on Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud, whose deteriorating relationship lies at the heart of the Coalition’s collapse.
Many Liberals believe Ley’s team made a strategic error by relentlessly pushing for parliament to return early after the Bondi terror attack. The move, intended to demonstrate resolve, instead gave Prime Minister Anthony Albanese the opening to introduce a sweeping omnibus bill combining gun control reforms with hate crime legislation.
The bill proved politically toxic. Every Coalition MP found at least one element objectionable, allowing Labor to wedge the opposition and expose deep fault lines between the Liberals and the Nationals.
If Littleproud believed he could emerge as the victor from the confrontation, Liberals argue he badly miscalculated. By making Ley’s removal a precondition for any future Coalition reunion, he redirected Liberal anger away from their own leadership and towards himself.
“He’s taken a bad situation and made it worse,” one Liberal said. “No one likes being told who their leader should be.”
The rupture was triggered by the Nationals’ decision to break ranks in the Senate after days of muddled communication and escalating internal pressure. On Sunday night, Ley left a shadow cabinet meeting believing a common strategy had been agreed: outright opposition to the gun reforms, paired with negotiated amendments to tighten definitions and thresholds in the hate crime laws.
That approach was reinforced at a Coalition leadership meeting on Monday morning, with Liberal sources saying the Nationals signalled their assent.
But confusion quickly set in. Nationals MPs later claimed Littleproud had told them no final decision had been made, while senior Liberals privately accused him of misrepresenting discussions when addressing his own party room.
Throughout Monday, Nationals MPs held marathon meetings while Liberal shadow ministers repeatedly briefed them on the legislation. Senator Matt Canavan emerged as a key voice among Nationals colleagues, raising concerns that vague definitions of “harm” could allow the laws to be weaponised against mainstream or religious organisations.
A loose understanding was reached that the Nationals would abstain in the House of Representatives to buy time for further negotiations. Instead, confusion reigned in the chamber, with Nationals MPs voting three different ways.
By Tuesday afternoon, Littleproud had concluded the Nationals would have to oppose the bill in the Senate. Some Liberal senators realised what was coming before others. The Nationals tabled late amendments that Liberals said they had not previously seen, all of which failed.
When the final vote was taken late Tuesday night, Liberals sided with Labor to pass the legislation. Nationals senators Susan McDonald, Bridget McKenzie and Ross Cadell crossed the floor to vote against it, later acknowledging they had breached shadow cabinet solidarity.
The Nationals dispute the Liberal account of shadow cabinet discussions, arguing the “usual Coalition process” was not followed. Crucially, they had also agreed internally that if any of the three were punished, the entire Nationals frontbench would resign.
Littleproud warned Ley of the “one out, all out” pact before the Senate vote, and reiterated it in a letter on Wednesday morning as Ley considered the resignations offered by the three senators.
One Liberal said it was staggering the Nationals believed advance notice of an ultimatum made it acceptable.
“How could she turn around and tell the party room she caved because she was threatened?” the MP asked.
Coalition partners have voted separately before, most notably in 2008 over wheat market deregulation, when Liberal leader Brendan Nelson and Nationals leader Warren Truss formally agreed to disagree. But Liberals argue the comparison does not hold.
“That worked because the Nationals had a long-held, principled position,” one Liberal said. “This was nothing like that.”
Some Nationals hoped Ley would treat the hate laws as exceptional circumstances given the speed of the bill’s passage. But that leniency had not been extended in the past to Liberals such as Andrew Hastie, who resigned from the frontbench over policy differences, or to moderates inclined to support the gun reforms.
Neither Ley nor Littleproud spoke directly before she decided to accept the resignations. Littleproud attempted to reach her before boarding a flight out of Canberra, but she was in a meeting. By the time she returned the call, he was airborne.
On Wednesday afternoon, Ley released a statement accepting the resignations. When Littleproud landed, he convened a Nationals party room meeting. By early evening, resignations began to flow. Shortly after 9pm, Ley confirmed she had received offers from all remaining Nationals frontbenchers, including Littleproud.
In a brief statement, she rejected those resignations, noting Littleproud’s letter did not explicitly state the Nationals were leaving the Coalition.
Any remaining hope of salvaging the partnership evaporated the next morning. Ley and Littleproud spoke by phone around 8am. Sources close to Ley say Littleproud was furious and demanded she resign. He denies shouting.
Thirty minutes later, Littleproud fronted the media in Brisbane to announce the Nationals were leaving the Coalition—only the third such split in history, and the second in less than a year.
“We cannot be part of a shadow ministry under Sussan Ley,” he said.
By making Ley’s leadership a non-negotiable condition for reunion, Littleproud has arguably weakened his own position. Liberals say any move against Ley now would appear to be capitulation to the Nationals.
“Even if her leadership was on borrowed time, no one wants to be seen dancing to the Nationals’ tune,” one Liberal MP said.
Across the Liberal Party, enthusiasm for an immediate reunion is low. Members from both the right and moderate factions privately say time apart may be healthy.
“A bit of distance might actually help us work out who we are,” one moderate said.
Among the Nationals, views range from despair at the long road back to confidence that a new Liberal leader would quickly restore the Coalition.
Ley has left the door open to reconciliation but has delayed filling the vacant frontbench positions, mirroring her approach during last year’s split.
Leadership chatter, meanwhile, continues to swirl. Angus Taylor’s scheduled return from Europe sparked renewed speculation, while Andrew Hastie is being closely watched. Supporters of both men have been sounding out colleagues.
Despite the noise, most Liberals dismiss talk of an imminent spill as premature. Apart from a small group of habitual critics, there is little appetite for removing the party’s first female leader in the immediate aftermath of the split.
Whether the rupture ultimately hastens Ley’s downfall remains uncertain. What is clear is that trust between the two leaders is shattered.
Both say their doors remain open. Few in either party believe reconciliation will come easily—if at all.
