Australian Coalition reunite after one week

Thursday, May 29, 2025 

The Liberal-National Coalition of Australia, for decades the dominant centre-right party, has reunited after a separation that lasted a week. On the 28th of May, at a joint press conference, the two parties' leaders, Sussan Ley and David Littleproud, announced that the parties would be reuniting; with the Coalition being the Opposition, the two politicians also announced the new shadow cabinet at the same Wednesday's press conference.

The two parties had previously split recently following the 2025 federal election, in which both the Liberals and the Nationals were defeated by their rivals, leading to disagreements between the two parties over policy differences even as Peter Dutton, the leader of the Liberals and the Coalition, lost his seat in the Parliament, necessitating a change in leadership. On the 20th of May, Nationals leader David Littleproud announced that the party was cutting ties with the Liberal party, insisting that the Nationals cannot give up their policy demands even as Sussan Ley, the new leader of the Liberals, was looking forward to a sweeping and thorough review of the party's policies in the wake of the significant loss in the federal election.

At the time of the reunion, the Liberals agreed to four policy demands issued by the Nationals, relating to nuclear power, a Regional Australia Future Fund, remote mobile data coverage, and changes to the supermarket sector. The split has reportedly caused infighting amongst the party, but Littleproud has stated that he would stand by the policies he demanded. The party has also undergone a shadow cabinet reshuffle following the reunification.

Back together, Liberal leader Sussan Ley has stated that she looked forward to the two parties working together in the future.

At first, the split of the two parties caused doubts about whether either party would ever gain a majority enough to challenge the incumbent Labor government. There have been splits in the past, the most recent being in 1987, but neither parties could have formed majority government without the other.

It should be noted that in regards to nuclear power plants, the Coalition's policy has changed: it will no longer pursue their previous commitment to building seven of them, but will instead continue to push against the existing national moratorium on nuclear power.

Sources

• Jake Evans. Coalition gets back together after week-long split — ABC, May 28, 2025
• Alasdair Pal. Australia's opposition coalition reunites a week after split — Reuters, May 28, 2025
• Lana Lam. Australia's Liberal-National coalition reunite a week after split — BBC, May 28, 2025