Nationals MP Colin Boyce announces challenge to David Littleproud

The National and Liberal parties continue to implode as Sussan Ley made a last-ditch attempt at reconciliation and a little-known Queensland MP announced he would challenge David Littleproud.

Mr Littleproud was forced to defend his record as Nationals leader after backbencher Colin Boyce announced live on television he was going to challenge for the top job when his colleagues meet in Canberra on Monday.

The surprise flashpoint delays any prospect of a speedy reconciliation between the two parties formerly known as the Coalition, despite the Liberal leader offering to meet “without any preconditions and as a priority” before Parliament returns on Tuesday.

Ms Ley told her shadow ministerial colleagues on Wednesday afternoon that Mr Littleproud’s team had turned down that offer while he concentrated on his leadership contest.

Her own leadership is still not stabilised amid reports potential challengers Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor are set to meet in Melbourne, where they will attend a funeral for former MP Katie Allen on Thursday.

The right faction of the Liberals is split between the two men, although Mr Hastie’s supporters insist his backing is far stronger.

Mr Littleproud walked away from the Coalition with the Liberal Party last week after a disagreement over the new laws banning hate groups and the shadow cabinet’s internal processes.

Ms Ley wrote to him on Tuesday to suggest they meet urgently, along with senior party officials, to talk about a reconciliation – but was rebuffed.

“I reminded him that as the leaders of the Liberal and National parties, we are the stewards of two great movements that exist to serve the Australian people and that maintaining a strong and functioning relationship between our two parties is in the national interest — whether in formal Coalition or not,” she told her shadow ministry in a briefing note on Wednesday.

“David’s team have just advised mine that his focus is the spill motion he now faces and he is therefore unavailable to meet until after that spill is considered.”

Mr Boyce, the member for Flynn, surprised colleagues by using a live interview on Sky News on Wednesday morning to pull the pin on the Nationals’ leadership.

“David has made some bad decisions recently. He’s upset just about everybody he can possibly upset,” he said.

“We do have to get this Coalition back together again. It’s a bit like trying to weld square pipe to round pipe.

“I will be moving a spill motion on Monday afternoon in the National Party party room to give my colleagues an option. Because the reality is, if they follow the course they’re on now we are going over the political cliff.”

He said Ms Ley had left the door open to re-establishing the Coalition and that doing so was “the most viable way forward” for conservative politics.

It’s likely the second-term MP is a stalking horse for a more experienced leadership contender.

In a statement on Wednesday, Mr Littleproud defended his actions.

“I stand by my record as leader of the Nationals and what our party room has achieved, through important policy work and standing up for regional, rural and remote Australia,” he said.

“As leader of the Nationals, I have always respected the party room’s decisions and direction; that includes the right to voice different opinions. We celebrate that freedom within the Nationals.”

He pointed out his party had held all its lower house seats at the 2025 election.

However, it lost a Senate seat and failed to win back Calare from defector Andrew Gee. Since the election, the party has shrunk further with the defection of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to the Liberals and Barnaby Joyce to One Nation.

While some within the Liberal and National parties have reportedly been in talks to bring the coalition partners back together before the split becomes entrenched, there is a widespread view that the animosity between Ms Ley and Mr Littleproud is so great a reconciliation is unlikely unless one or both leaders change.

Ms Ley emphasised to her colleagues that the Liberals “will talk to whoever the Nationals elect as their leader” but that it wasn’t their place to intervene in the other party’s decisions.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Australians were watching “the disintegration of the far right” as the Liberals and Nationals descended into farce.

“We won’t be distracted by the bin fire which is the former Coalition,” he said.

Mr Boyce also warned that if the split continued, Nationals politicians would be the losers who would miss out on parliamentary resources, travel entitlements and devoted staff who had worked with them for years.

Earlier, Mr Littleproud said he’d had discussions with the Prime Minister’s office about staffing allocations as he worked through allocating portfolios to his Nationals colleagues.

He claimed the office had been “very accommodating and understanding”.

However, The Nightly understands the Nationals are yet to make a concrete request to Anthony Albanese regarding staff numbers.

The Greens, with 11 MPs, have 16 advisers. If staff were allocated proportionately to the Nationals, this suggests they could have 26 for their 18 members, but there is no precedent for this.

Other crossbenchers and party defectors have previously had lengthy waits for the Prime Minister to sign off on their staffing allocations.

Speculation has mounted in recent weeks that One Nation was courting Mr Boyce to follow Barnaby Joyce in joining the minor party’s ranks.

However, he categorically ruled out doing so on Wednesday.