As the Nats formally walked back into the coalition on Wednesday, leader David Littleproud took a swipe at the “gossip and backgrounding” of the past week. Alluding to leadership rumblings over how he’d handled talks with Liberal counterpart Sussan Ley — the talks that produced a sensational week-long bust-up — Littleproud was keen to emphasise that he and his colleagues were getting on with the job. Unlike those engaging in all that speculation, he insisted, the Nats were having “real conversations” tackling “real problems.”
Some of those conversations — and problems — are now coming to light.
The problem that prompted Littleproud’s remark wasn’t the cost of living, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the climate crisis (especially not that) or even the struggles of people in regional Australia. He was answering a question at the leaders’ reconciliation news conference about an existential issue even closer to home: the Nationals’ concern that they’re about to lose party status in the Senate.
And with Friday’s news that One Nation has secured a surprise second extra seat at the 3 May election — adding one in New South Wales and one confirmed earlier this week in Western Australia to the two it already held in Queensland — that problem becomes a problem for prime minister Anthony Albanese, too.
The Nationals are pressing Albanese for special dispensation when it comes to status and resources. With the Nationals and One Nation now holding four Senate seats apiece, that puts the prime minister in quite the spot. Without some special construct, it might be hard to do for one what he isn’t prepared to do for the other.
In all the hullabaloo surrounding their Coalition exit and re-entry, the Nationals may have shot themselves in the foot all over again by drawing attention to their Senate-status problem. It was the focus of a blistering letter their upper house leader Bridget McKenzie sent to her Liberal counterpart Michaelia Cash on 12 May, three days after the Liberals persuaded NT Country Liberal Party senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to abandon the Nats for the Liberal party room.
The letter pointed out that the defection compounded the loss after 30 June of former deputy leader Perin Davey, a joint-ticket victim of the Liberals’ vote collapse in New South Wales. Together, those departures take the Nationals’ Senate numbers down to four, one less than the generally accepted magic minimum party-status number.
“This is below what is required to maintain party status in the Senate as a party that is ‘part of the Government or the Opposition’ under the Parliamentary Business Resources Regulations 2017,” a livid McKenzie wrote to Cash. “Losing party status in the Senate would have significant implications for the Nationals Senate team, as well as the wider Coalition.”
In fact, that’s not what the regulations say at all. McKenzie left out a crucial word: “not.”
The regulations, which deal primarily with travel allowances and expenses, define party status only by declaring what it takes to be designated a standalone “minority party” — not a party in a coalition. Other than that, there is no reference to what constitutes “party status.” What they actually say is that an eligible “minority party” has “at least five members in the Parliament” — that’s the whole parliament — and “is not part of the Government or the Opposition.”
This suggests that a fall in the Nats’ numbers could only have made a difference to their party status — and those resources — if they’d remained in exile. They’d still have had more than five members across the whole parliament and — because they’d no longer be part of the opposition — they would qualify as a “minority party,” with the extra travel, expenses and bigger-office benefits for office-holders that come with that. So, that’s arguably a plus.
Being part of the Coalition, on the other hand, whether in government or opposition, automatically rules them ineligible for “minority party” status. The Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority confirmed on Friday that for this reason, the Nationals did not have “minority party” status in the Senate prior to the recent election for the purposes of accessing travel resources and related expenses.
The black-and-white “minority party” definition may cast new light on the threat in the last line of McKenzie’s letter to Cash, and possibly even on the whole Nationals’ walkout.
“Depending on the outcome of negotiations between our two parties over coming weeks, the Nationals Senate party room will need to consider our position with respect to sitting with the Liberal Party as a Coalition in the Senate chamber,” she wrote.
This whole curious party-status kerfuffle raises some interesting questions.
Given IPEA’s confirmation that the Nationals didn’t have “minority party” status under the definition McKenzie was seeking to cite, what are the “implications” to which she referred? What, if any, party-status benefits were the Nationals receiving? And exactly how did they qualify?
Answers, thus far, are proving elusive.
Appeals to Albanese aren’t the only “conversations” the Nationals have been having on the subject. Turns out, they’ve been on their own recruitment drive, hoping to lure a crossbencher over to boost their numbers.
Their options are limited. While Hanson has publicly floated the possibility of some kind of alliance, she ain’t going to have her One Nation brand subsumed into another party — certainly not now that she’s level-pegging with them on Senate numbers. Anything less than having other senators sign up as Nationals wouldn’t solve their numbers problem.
After the election, an approach was made to Tasmanian independent senator Tammy Tyrrell. It isn’t the first time the Nats have tested whether she might join them — an initial proposal was put more than a year ago, around the time she split from Tasmanian colleague Jacqui Lambie and the party that bears Lambie’s name.
Tyrrell wasn’t interested then and it’s understood she isn’t now, though she declined to comment.
It’s been suggested that the idea may also have been floated informally past Victorian United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet, though Babet’s office says no offer was made.
Meanwhile, David Littleproud reports that the Coalition Senate teams are “working through” the situation and having conversations “about making sure that there is a status that can be remained for the National Party.” (Yes, that is what he said.)
“While you’ve heard much of the gossip and the backgrounding,” he told journalists on Wednesday, “the reality is [in] the real conversations we’re addressing these real problems.”
Problems and reality. In the Senate at least, the Nats may yet be mugged again by both. •
