Former Nationals leader Michael McCormack has backed David Littleproud’s leadership ahead of a colleague’s attempt to oust the embattled leader.
The leadership challenge has been brought on by Liberal National Party MP Colin Boyce and is slated to take place during the Nationals’ party room on Monday afternoon.
However, to successfully move the motion, Mr Boyce requires it to be seconded by another MP or senator in the party room.
Mr Boyce earlier claimed the reason behind the spill was not a desire for the top job but an urgent need to reunify the Coalition, which split in January for the second time under Mr Littleproud’s watch.
However, the Flynn MP will likely face difficulty in rallying the party room against Mr Littleproud after several high-profile Nationals members – including deputy leader Kevin Hogan, senator Bridget McKenzie, and leadership rival Matt Canavan – confirmed they would back the leader on a ballot against Mr Boyce.
Ahead of the vote on Monday, Mr McCormack was hesitant to predict whether Mr Boyce’s spill motion would proceed.
“That I’m not sure … but if it goes ahead, then so be it. That’s democracy. Anybody’s entitled to put their hands up and we’ll have to see how it plays out,” he said.
“I know that Colin (Boyce) is a bit unhappy at the moment with how things are going.
“I think David Littleproud has the numbers. I think he’s got the security there, so we’ll just have to see what transpires.”
Mr McCormack also believed the Coalition should unify within the next two days but said he did not know what the chances were of that happening.
Later, he added the Liberals and Nationals could not continue the toxic infighting that had ultimately led them to this predicament.
“People need to know that we’ve got their back, and we do have. We absolutely do have. But we need to listen to their concerns … and stop talking about ourselves and get back together and keep this government, this bad government, to account,” he said.
His comments come ahead of the first sitting week of the year where the divided Liberals and Nationals will be forced to reconcile a troubling new political reality.
When the House of Representatives and Senate resume this week, the Nationals will sit on the cross bench, separate from the Liberal Party for the first time since the 1980s, as they are no longer part of the opposition.
Both the Nationals and the Liberals have been engulfed in chaos after Mr Littleproud walked the junior Coalition partner away from the alliance earlier this month.
The relationship shattered after Mr Littleproud, along with 10 other National Party frontbenchers, resigned from Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s shadow ministry and branded a Liberals-Nationals alliance “untenable”.
The move is proving to be increasingly catastrophic for both parties, as polls find conservative voters are instead flocking to populist party One Nation amid the rampant instability of the Liberals and Nationals.
While One Nation is not a party of government – it only holds one seat in the House of Representatives, won by Barnaby Joyce during his time with the Nationals – its surge in polling popularity raises troubling signs for the former Coalition partners.
