Jim Chalmers lashes ‘smoking ruin’ Coalition after Nationals’ mutiny

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has laid into the federal opposition as rumours swirl around Liberal leader Sussan Ley’s future following the implosion of the coalition.

Doubt was cast on the future of Ms Ley’s tenure as Opposition Leader on Wednesday night after eight remaining National Party frontbenchers – including leader David Littleproud – resigned from her shadow ministry en masse.

Ms Ley had earlier accepted the resignations of three shadow cabinet members who voted in the Senate against Labor’s hate speech reforms.

In a scathing assessment on Thursday, Mr Chalmers said the “the kindest thing you can say about the Coalition right now is that it’s a smoking ruin”.

“I think they’re paying a price for putting internal politics before public safety this week in the parliament,” she said.

“That’s what we’ve seen this week, and that’s why the Coalition is disintegrating.”

The Treasurer proceeded to lay into prospective opposition leaders.

“Angus Taylor is the guy that took to an election of policy for higher income taxes and bigger deficits as shadow treasurer,” he said.

“Ted O’Brien wanted to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to build seven nuclear reactors and push energy prices up.

“Andrew Hastie makes Tony Abbott look like a sensible moderate.

“So it’s slim pickings in the Coalition.”

He warned of a “bizarre race to the extreme right”.

“The reason why Coalition parties look like a three-ring circus is because the Libs and the Nats and the One Nation wannabes are all just trying to be this kind of paler shade of orange as they chase extremes on the political spectrum,” he said.

While speculation swirled, any real attempt on Ms Ley’s leadership appeared unlikely in the short-term, with parliament not scheduled to sit again until February 3.

It is understood neither Angus Taylor nor Andrew Hastie had been calling MPs and senators, nor were numbers being run for a potential leadership spill.

A Liberal source said Ms Ley had called to check in on colleagues, and noted the vote had been on a sensitive issue and there had been community backlash.

The source hoped the current crisis would simmer down over coming days.

“There’s two schools of thought, one is ‘Is Sussan Ley mortally wounded, and if so, when?’ and the other is ‘the Nationals are acting badly’,” they said.

Nationals MPs are understood to have been told not to speak to their Liberal colleagues following their party-room meeting.

‘Chaotic’: Barnaby erupts over Nats’ spat

Former Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce earlier blasted his ex-colleague David Littleproud amid the collapse of the Coalition.

Mr Joyce abandoned a two-decade long career with the Nationals to join One Nation in November, citing irreconcilable differences with party leadership, namely David Littleproud.

Addressing the split between his former party and the Liberals, Mr Joyce was scathing in his criticism during a press conference in Tamworth.

“This is process by Mr Littleproud is totally and utterly chaotic,” he said.

He encouraged rebel Nationals who resigned from the shadow cabinet to follow tradition and return to the backbench.

“Please, spend time the back bench. That’s where you go, and then after a period of time … you come back, but you don’t blow the whole show up,” he said.

Mr Joyce said the Nationals had “three positions in one night” over the two bills, and blasted those who waited to see if the party’s amendments – which would have referred the hate speech reforms to a committee – would pass.

“They didn’t get through the House of Reps, they were never going to get through the Senate,” he said.

Mr Joyce described the Coalition as “a marriage”.

“They come out of the election, they are married. Then, they get divorced only for 48 hours,” he said.

“And now they’re upset. They run out of the house and they get divorced, but it’s all right because they want to get married again before the next election”.

He said the chaos would be a boon for One Nation.

“I think we’ll get stronger, (and) stronger again,” he said.

Earlier, Mr Littleproud claimed the Opposition Leader’s was “protecting her own leadership ahead of maintaining the Coalition” and accused her of making the historic Liberals-Nationals alliance “untenable”.

Ms Ley’s leadership is under intense scrutiny after the eight remaining National Party frontbenchers – including leader David Littleproud – resigned from her shadow ministry on Wednesday night.

The move came in protest of her decision to axe three senior National Party members from the frontbench, after the trio broke shadow cabinet solidarity rules and voted against their Liberal colleagues on Labor’s hate speech reforms.

‘We’re gone’

Rebel senator Bridget McKenzie cast little aspersion over the future of the Coalition – “we’re gone”.

Senator McKenzie told Sky News Sussan Ley was “aware of the consequences” when she accepted the resignations of herself and two other rebel shadow cabinet members.

“When she accepted our offers to resign, she was aware of what that would precipitate, and she did it,” she said.

“That is her call, and she is well within her right as the leader of the opposition to do that.”

Asked if they would be going back to the Coalition, she said: “We’re not in Coalition with the Liberal Party”.

“We made a very difficult decision,” she said.

“It’s not easy … I’ve been here for a long time.

“So, we made a decision as a room of very different views of where our red lines were, we drafted the amendments, and we voted.”

Senator McKenzie denied the bill voted on by shadow cabinet on January 18 was “the bill actually voted on Tuesday night”.

“So, we didn’t have a further shadow cabinet on which to consider the final position of the Coalition,” she said.

“We did not have a joint party room on which to actually consider that and hear not just from National Party MPs and senators who had 10 party room meetings to discuss this over the last week, but to hear from our Liberal colleagues.“

She earlier ruled out jumping ship to One Nation in the wake of the collapse of the Coalition.

Addressing rumblings about a mass exodus to One Nation, Senator McKenzie confirmed she did not intend to jump ship like Mr Joyce.

“I made the decision a long time ago that I’m very much conservative, a proud conservative, and I think you need to be in government to actually make the changes our country needs,” she said.

Chalmers’ huge call on Coalition chaos

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has claimed Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is “on borrowed time”.

Grilled on whether Ms Ley’s leadership was terminal, Mr Chalmers claimed she was “obviously on borrowed time, but to be fair to her, all of the alternatives are much worse”.

“And I look around the Coalition right now, and it’s very clear that they can’t stand each other; they cannot work together, “ he told reporters in Canberra.

“They do not look anything like an alternative government. They look like a three-ring circus.”

“And Sussan Ley bears some responsibility for that, but not all of the responsibility for that.”

‘Making them more unelectable’

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull offered a scathing assessment of the current Coalition crisis on Thursday morning, telling ABC Radio Melbourne it was “only making them more unelectable than they were before”.

Mr Turnbull, who has in recent years become a staunch critic of current Coalition policies, described the situation as a “failure of political management”.

“Clearly, you know, you can’t unite and lead the country if you’re divided internally,” he said.

“This is a bad day for the Coalition, I guess. That’s a well, it’s no longer in existence. I’m sure it’ll re-form at some point.“

Mr Turnbull continued: “The bottom line is this: the Liberal Party, to form government, needs to have the National Party, because it needs to have those regional seats.

“It also needs to win back seats in the city, which had been thought to be their biggest problem, but now they’ve lost the National Party.“

‘Stay together’: McIntoshLiberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh has expressed support for the Coalition to stay together, citing her positive relationship with Mr Littleproud and other Nationals colleagues. Ms McIntosh – who has publicly expressed ambitions to one day lead the Liberal Party – claimed both parties represented the nation best when they were “strong, together and focused”, in a statement posted online.

“I have a very good relationship with Nationals’ leader David Littleproud and my colleagues in the Nationals, working closely in my shadow portfolios since coming into opposition with Bridget McKenzie and Anne Webster in particular,” she said.

She added: “I want the Liberal and Nationals to stay together. Our country needs the hope that we bring in the cities, the suburbs and the regions.”

‘That’s completely up to them’

“Earlier, Mr Joyce remained tight-lipped on whether he was in conversation with his former colleagues to join One Nation after the National Party’s mass resignations.

“It’s a tumultuous thing to change parties. I’ve been there myself, but I think people are starting to see a little bit more of the reason why by reason the last couple of days,” he told the ABC.

“And it’s completely personal. If you decide to do it, you do it.

“It’s not something that I would push somebody into doing, but if they chose to do it, I would support them.”

Grilled on whether any he had any conversations with Nationals members about a possible defection, Mr Joyce said: “Now, I’m not going to go and say who those people are.”

“But yes, of course, you know, in the course of time, you have discussions like that,” he said.

‘Tears in my eyes’

Nationals MP Anne Webster says the collective move to resign from the Coalition frontbench was a “painful” one.

“People don’t understand how pressured and difficult this has been this week,” she told the ABC.

“Our senators did an incredible job. We determined in the afternoon before the senators took those extra amendments to the Senate that if push came to shove … then they would have to tender their resignations … It’s just a protocol.

“And that we, as shadow cabinet, as shadow ministers ourselves, would also tender our resignations.

“We did not do that lightly. This was incredibly difficult. It was painful. I had tears in my eyes because we want to stand for principles that reflect the values of Australians.”

Grilled on whether a dramatic divorce was on the cards for the Liberals and the Nationals, Ms Webster said: “Look, the divorce has happened. It’s not coming. It’s happened.”

‘Falling apart at the seams’

Earlier, Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek blasted the Coalition for focusing on internal politics, branding it a distraction from the National Day of Mourning for the victims of the Bondi attack.

“The focus of the parliament this week is to keep the laws to keep Australians safe,” Ms Plibersek told the ABC.

“I think it’s disappointing the Coalition have chosen today to engage in this sort of nonsense and diversion.

“Today is a day of mourning and our should be focused on laws to keep us safe and bring us together.

“Parliamentarians should be on what’s good for the nation instead they’re focused on themselves.”

In previous comments to the Today Show, Ms Plibersek claimed the opposition’s internal divisions were a sign they weren’t “even a Coalition anymore”.

“They’re falling apart at the seams at a time when we need stability and unity behaviour in this country,” she said.

‘Our country is in trouble’

The Coalition is “seemingly in deep crisis”, former prime minister Tony Abbott said, amid the ongoing fallout of the National Party’s rebellion.

In a statement posted on Wednesday evening, less than an hour after the news of the Nationals’ mass resignations broke, Mr Abbott claimed the country was “in trouble”.

“The Bondi massacre was preceded by two years of governmental failure to deal with unAustralian Jew hatred and complacency towards Islamic extremism,” he wrote.

“Now the moral failure of the Labor government has been compounded by the political failure of the Coalition.

“When a palpably inadequate government faces an opposition seemingly in deep crisis our country is in trouble.

“Good very rarely comes from laws that are revised on the run, and passed in haste with who knows what unintended consequences.”