Coalition split as it happened: Littleproud says Nationals ‘cannot be part of a shadow ministry under Sussan Ley’ before announcing split with Liberals

Thanks for reading today’s special edition of the national news blog, as the Nationals announced their decision to split the Coalition for the second time since the 2025 federal election.

We’ll conclude this blog here, but stay tuned, as a separate blog covering the National Day of Mourning commemorations will begin shortly.

Here’s what we covered today:

• Nationals leader David Littleproud announced shortly before 9am today that his party was walking away from the Coalition, blowing up the opposition for the second time since the last election.
• Littleproud blamed Opposition Leader Sussan Ley for forcing his hand, claiming the Liberal leader should not have accepted the resignations of three Nationals senators who broke shadow cabinet convention when they voted against the Coalition’s position to support Labor’s hate crimes laws on Tuesday.
• Treasurer Jim Chalmers called the Coalition a “smoking ruin”, suggesting Sussan Ley was on “borrowed time” amid the political turmoil. In a press conference, he immediately turned to attack Ley’s potential successors as Liberal leader, describing them as “far worse”.
• Barnaby Joyce, the ex-Nationals MP who defected to One Nation last year, said the chaos showed why he left Australia’s traditional conservative bloc for Pauline Hanson’s surging party. United Australia Party leader Clive Palmer also celebrated the split in a social media video.
• Sussan Ley has not addressed the Coalition implosion today, as she said the focus should be on the national day of mourning for the Bondi attacks instead.
• Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie admitted on radio that the timing of her party’s split from the Coalition on a day of mourning was appalling, but claims they couldn’t do anything about it.
• Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull told ABC radio the decision to split had made both parties “more unelectable”, lamenting the split, while also sharing his belief that it wouldn’t be permanent.

We’ll be back tomorrow with more live news updates.

If you’re about to leave work and commute home, but are still wondering what on earth happened in federal politics today, we’ve got you covered.

Listen to today’s special episode of Inside Politics while you’re on the bus or train to get an overview of what’s happened and what it all means.

Chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal is joined by federal political correspondent Natassia Chrysanthos to break it all down, focusing on the historic decision to break up the Coalition, a century-old political alliance.

Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts:

Mining billionaire Clive Palmer has celebrated what he called the death of the Liberal Party.

“The Liberal Party lacks the conviction and strength needed to hold the Albanese government to account,” Palmer said in a statement on the website of his United Australia Party, which was de-registered before the last election.

“Together we can achieve the extraordinary. Goodbye Liberal Party, goodbye.”

Palmer was a Liberal-National Party member before launching his own party. Its latest iteration, the Trumpet of Patriots, failed to pick up any seats in the last election despite Palmer pouring millions into the campaign, after which he said he was retiring from politics.

Nationals MP Darren Chester told Sussan Ley her recollection of the events leading to the vote on Labor’s hate crime legislation, in which three Nationals senators broke shadow cabinet rules when they voted against the Coalition’s position on the draft laws, was “inconsistent” with his memory.

He also challenged the Liberal leader’s decision to accept the resignations of the Nationals senators.

In a letter tendering his resignation to Ley on Wednesday night, Chester maintained that shadow cabinet reached an “inconclusive outcome” on the legislation at its Sunday meeting, and that no further discussions confirmed the Coalition’s position before the vote on Tuesday evening.

“It’s hard to argue there was a breach of shadow cabinet solidarity when the Coalition didn’t reach a final position in accordance with normal processes,” wrote Chester, who served as shadow veterans’ affairs minister before his resignation.

“In that policy vacuum, the Nationals met on several occasions and endeavoured to find a pathway forward to improve the bill by eliminating unintended consequences … I support the position taken by the leader of the Nationals and the party room to endorse our senators voting against the bill in question.”

Nationals leader David Littleproud confirmed this morning that the party would walk away from the Coalition, marking the second time in eight months that Australia’s conservative bloc has disbanded.

Good afternoon, and thank you for reading our live coverage of the Coalition split.

Here’s what has happened today:

• Nationals leader David Littleproud announced that his party was leaving the Coalition this morning, marking the second time the Liberals and Nationals have disbanded in the past eight months. It came after Opposition leader Sussan Ley accepted the resignation of three Nationals senators who broke shadow cabinet rules when they voted against the then-Coalition’s position on hate crime legislation on Tuesday.
• Former Coalition prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has lamented the disintegration of Australia’s conservative bloc, finding it has made the parties “more unelectable than they were before”. Turnbull did signal optimism that the two parties could return together in the future, saying he was “sure” a reform would be on the cards at “some point”.
• Treasurer Jim Chalmers has turned his eye to Ley’s potential successors, finding that the candidates to gain the Liberal leadership were “far worse” than the incumbent. Angus Taylor, Ted O’Brien and Andrew Hastie were among the names floated by Chalmers, who suspects a leadership spill will occur “before long”. Chalmers spoke after new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed the jobless rate fell to 4.1 per cent in December – a better result than forecasted.

Jim Chalmers has already turned his sights towards attacking Sussan Ley’s potential successors as Liberal leader, telling reporters her days were numbered amid the Coalition’s split.

“But to be fair to her, all the alternatives in the former Coalition are worse,” the treasurer said at a press conference this hour.

“You look at the list of names that you guys have been writing about through the course of this crazy day: Angus Taylor’s the guy who took to an election a policy for higher income taxes and bigger deficits as shadow treasurer. Ted O’Brien wanted to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to build nuclear reactors and push prices up. Andrew Hastie makes Tony Abbott look like a sensible moderate.

“So, it’s slim pickings in the Coalition. I suspect they will make a change before long. But we won’t be distracted. We continue to focus on the things that really matter – jobs, the economy, the cost of living, housing, public security and national security.”

Chalmers was speaking after new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics today revealed the jobless rate fell to 4.1 per cent in December and 65,200 jobs were added to the economy – a better result than expected.

Jim Chalmers just spoke to reporters in Canberra.

Watch below: