Liberal–National Coalition | |
|---|---|
.svg) | |
| Abbreviation |
|
| Leader | Angus Taylor |
| Deputy Leader | David Littleproud |
| Founded | See list
|
| Dissolved | Previous dissolutions
|
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre-right toright-wing |
| Colours | Blue |
| Federal member parties | |
| State/territory member parties | Liberal:National:Merged: |
| State coalitions | |
| Part ofa series on |
| Conservatism in Australia |
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TheLiberal–National Coalition, commonly known simply as theCoalition or theLNP,[a] is analliance ofconservative andcentre-right toright-wing political parties in Australia. Its primary members are theLiberal Party of Australia and theNational Party of Australia (previously known as the Country Party and the National Country Party).[7] The Coalition and its main opponent, theAustralian Labor Party (ALP), are often regarded as operating in atwo-party system. The Coalition was last in government federally from 2013 to 2022.
The Coalition has existed in some form since 1923, initially involving the Liberal Party's predecessors, theNationalist Party andUnited Australia Party. It has historically been a stable alignment for long periods in both government and opposition, including at three elections where the Liberal Party won enough seats to govern in its own right. The stability between the parties (and their predecessors) has been punctuated by seven breaks in the agreement, including the1931,1934 and1987 federal elections, which the parties contested separately. Its longest iteration spanned 38 years after its reestablishment in 1987, which was followed by its shortest iteration of under a year after the eight-day split in the aftermath of the2025 election, which itself was brought to an end on 22 January 2026 after the National Party again left the union.[8] The Coalition reunited on 8 February 2026.[9][10]
The Liberal and National parties have different geographicalvoter bases, with the Liberals – the larger party – drawing most of their vote from urban areas, and the Nationals operating almost exclusively in rural and regional areas. They occupy a broadly similar place on the right of thepolitical spectrum. The Liberals and Nationals maintain separate organisational wings and separateparliamentary parties, but have cooperated in various ways determined by a mixture of formal agreements and informal conventions. There is a single Coalitionfrontbench, both in government and inopposition, with each party receiving a proportionate number of positions. By convention, the leader of the Liberal Party serves as the overall leader, serving asprime minister when the Coalition was in government andleader of the opposition when the Coalition was in opposition. The leader of the National Party became thedeputy prime minister during periods of Coalition government. The two parties cooperated on theirfederal election campaigns, ran jointSenate tickets in New South Wales and Victoria, and generally avoided running candidates against each other in theHouse of Representatives.
A merger of the Liberals and Nationals has been suggested on several occasions, but has never become a serious proposition at the federal level. The relationship between the two parties varies at state and territory levels. The situation in New South Wales and Victoria broadly mirrors the previousstatus quo at the federal level with both parties in coalition, while in Western Australia the parties are independent of each other. In theNorthern Territory the territorial parties merged in 1974 to form theCountry Liberal Party (CLP), and in 2008 the Queensland state-level parties merged, forming theLiberal National Party of Queensland (LNP). LNP and CLP members elected to federal parliament do not form separate parliamentary parties. CLP members may choose to sit in either the Liberal or National party rooms, while an LNP member must sit in the party room associated with their seat. InSouth Australia,Tasmania and theAustralian Capital Territory, the Nationals have no sitting MPs and little or no organisational presence.
The origins of the Coalition date back to the1922 federal election, when theNationalist Party, the main middle-class non-Labor party of the time, lost the absolute majority it had held since its formation in 1917. The Nationalists could only stay in office with the support of the two-year-oldCountry Party. It soon became apparent that aconfidence and supply agreement would not be enough to keep the Nationalists in office.
However, Country Party leaderEarle Page had never trusted the Nationalist Prime Minister,Billy Hughes. Indeed, the Country Party had been formed in part due to discontent with Hughes' rural policy. Page not only let it be known that he would not serve under Hughes, but demanded Hughes' resignation before he would even consider coalition talks. Hughes resigned, and Page then entered negotiations with the new Nationalist leader,Stanley Bruce. The Country Party's terms were unusually stiff for a prospective junior partner in aWestminster system (and especially so for a relatively new party) – five seats in an 11-member cabinet, as well as theTreasurer's post and second rank in the ministry for Page. Nonetheless, Bruce agreed rather than force a new election. Since then, the leader of the Country Party, which evolved into the National Party, has ranked second in nearly all non-Labor governments.
The Nationalist–Country Coalition was reelected twice, and continued in office until its defeatin 1929, in which Bruce lost his seat, the first sitting Prime Minister to do so. Unlike many later iterations, the coalition arrangement did not continue into opposition.
The Country Party and the Nationalists' successor party, theUnited Australia Party, fought the1931 federal election with a joint Senate ticket, though they ran separate House tickets. The UAP came up only four seats short of a majority in its own right. TheEmergency Committee of South Australia, which stood for the UAP and Country Party in South Australia, joined the UAPparty room, giving the UAP enough support to rule alone. However, the parties once again joined in a full Coalition government following the1934 federal election.
After the death of Prime MinisterJoseph Lyons in April 1939, Page was appointed as his successor on an interim basis, pendingthe new election of a new UAP leader. Despite Page's misgivings, the UAP electedRobert Menzies – who was known to dislike the Country Party. Page subsequently made a vitriolic speech in parliament attacking Menzies's character, and withdrew his party from the coalition – the most recent occasion on which the coalition has been broken while in government.
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A number of Page's colleagues in the Country Party disagreed with his stance, and he resigned as leader in September 1939. He was replaced byArchie Cameron, and after months of negotiations the coalition was revived in March 1940, with five Country MPs joining thesecond Menzies ministry.
After losing eight seats at the1940 federal election, the Coalition was plunged intominority government for the first time in its history. Archie Cameron was an immediate victim of the election result, being replaced byArthur Fadden and later defecting to the UAP. Menzies increasingly struggled to balance his management of Australia's war effort with domestic concerns, and his party began to rebel against him. However, the UAP was bereft of leadership despite having been in power for a decade. With this in mind, in August 1941 the Coalition collectively decided that Fadden and Menzies should swap positions, with Menzies becomingMinister for Defence Co-ordination and Fadden becoming prime minister. It was the first and only occasion on which the Coalition was led by the leader of the junior party. However, theFadden government only lasted a few months before losing aconfidence motion and being replaced by the Labor Party in the form of theCurtin government.
After the demise of the Fadden government, the Coalition voted to continue on under his leadership in opposition. Menzies had opposed this, and resigned as UAP leader,to be replaced by the ageingBilly Hughes.
Up until the1943 election, the Coalition effectively operated as a single unit, with separate party meetings being extremely rare. However, the landslide defeat it suffered – under Fadden as opposition leader – led to an immediate change in strategy. The UAP voted to break off its ties with the Country Party in opposition, andre-elected Menzies as its leader. This is the most recent occasion in which the senior partner in the Coalition has opted to withdraw.
The UAP was folded into the Liberal Party in 1945, with Menzies as leader. In the lead-up to the1946 federal election, Menzies renewed the Coalition with the Country Party, which was still led by Fadden. They won the1949 federal election as a Coalition, and stayed in office for a record 23 years. This electoral success established a long period of stability in the coalition, during which the post ofDeputy Prime Minister was formally created in 1967 to denote Country leaderJohn McEwen's status as the number-two man in the government.
The parties decided not to form a coalition opposition following their defeat in1972, but went into the1974 federal election as a Coalition.[11]
Shortly after the reestablishment of the Coalition, the Country Party was rebadged as the National Country Party in 1975. The solidity of the Coalition was so strong in this period that despite the Liberals winning parliamentary majorities in their own right in the1975 and1977 federal elections, the Coalition agreement was retained, and the Coalition remained together upon entering opposition in the1983 federal election, shortly before which the National Country Party rebadged again to simply the National Party in 1982.
The Coalition suffered another break, related to the "Joh for Canberra" campaign, from April to August 1987, the rift healing after the1987 federal election in July.[12]
At the1996 federal election, the Coalition was retained despite the Liberal Party again winning a parliamentary majority in its own right. This inaugurated the Coalition's second longest period in government under the country's second longest serving Prime Minister,John Howard.
In the2007 federal election, the Coalition lost to the Labor Party and went into opposition, with Howard becoming both the second Prime Minister and second governing Coalition leader to lose their seat. The Coalition regained office in the2013 federal election as a majority government. This election was the most recent election (as of 2026[update]) in which the Coalition saw an increase in their first preference vote in the House of Representatives, increasing to 45% from 43% in the previous2010 federal election.
Under the Coalition in this period, there continued a trend of Prime Ministers contesting only one election before being deposed, which had begun under the Labor Party with Kevin Rudd's replacement with Julia Gillard. The Coalition began to lose support from the2016 federal election, with its first preference decreased to 42.04%.
In October 2018, the Coalition went into minority government for the second time in its history,[citation needed] when the seat ofWentworth was won by IndependentKerryn Phelps in theby-election.[13] The by-election was triggered by the resignation of incumbent Liberal MPMalcolm Turnbull, who was ousted as Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader during aspill motion earlier in August 2018. The coalition formed majority government again following the2019 federal election, despite having its first preference vote further reduced to 41.44%. In the lead-up to the2022 federal election, the Coalition briefly entered minority government for the third time after two members resigned to sit on the crossbench. In the election, the Coalition had its first preference vote reduced to 35.70%, lost to the Labor Party at the election and returned to opposition.
The Coalition had another loss in theMay 2025 federal election, with a first preference vote of 31.70%, the lowest in the Coalition's history. Following the election, Nationals leaderDavid Littleproud announced that the party would split from the Coalition, with policy differences aroundnuclear power, a future fund for regional Australia and supermarketdivestiture powers the main sticking points.[14] Littleproud stated "I gave her [Sussan Ley] the commitment that I'll work with her every day to help to try to rebuild the relationship to the point we can re-enter a coalition before the next election."[15] Nationals deputy leaderKevin Hogan later claimed that this was the decision of the party room rather than the party leadership, and admitted the party room's decision wasn't unanimous.[16] On 23 May, it was reported that the Liberal party room had agreed "in principle" to the Nationals' demands to re-establish a coalition agreement. These included lifting the national moratorium on nuclear energy, divestment powers for supermarkets and hardware retailers, a $20 billion off-budget investment fund for regional Australians and "tougher service obligations for mobile and internet providers". This was seen as leaving open the possibility of a renewed agreement before the resumption of parliament.[17] On 28 May, the parties announced a renewed Coalition agreement, and a newshadow ministry was revealed.[18]
The renewed agreement proved to be the Coalition's shortest lived arrangement. In September, October 2025 and January 2026, the Coalition polled at record lows in Resolve and Newspoll.[19][20][21][22]
On 21 January 2026, Nationals senatorsSusan McDonald,Bridget McKenzie, andRoss Cadell resigned from the Shadow Ministry for voting against the Coalition's shadow cabinet position concerning hate speech laws, which were drafted by the government in response to the2025 Bondi Beach shooting. Their resignations were accepted by Ley and following this, the eight remaining National frontbenchers also resigned from the shadow cabinet.[23][24] The next day Nationals leaderDavid Littleproud confirmed the party had again quit the Coalition, saying "our party room has made it clear that we cannot be part of a shadow ministry under Sussan Ley" and that "we sit by ourselves" in the parliament.[25] The two parties reunified on 8 February 2026. Both parties also agreed that that shadow cabinet decisions could no longer be overturned by either individual party, but instead could only be overturned by a joint Coalition party room.[26][27]
Coalition arrangements were facilitated by Australia'spreferential voting systems which enable Liberals and Nationals to compete locally in three-cornered-contests, with theAustralian Labor Party (ALP), while exchanging preferences in elections. Such contests would weaken their prospects underfirst-past-the-post voting. From time to time, friction was caused by the fact that the Liberal and National candidates were campaigning against each other, without long-term damage to the relationship.
Indeed, the whole point of introducing preferential voting was to allow safe spoiler-free, three-cornered contests. It was a government of theNationalist Party, a forerunner to the modern Liberal Party which introduced the legislation, following Labor's unexpected win at the1918 Swan by-election where the conservative vote split. Two months later, theCorangamite by-election held under preferential voting caused the initially leading ALP candidate to lose after some lower-placed candidates' preferences had been distributed.
As a result of variations on the preferential voting system used in every state and territory, the Coalition was able to thrive, wherever both its member parties have both been active. The preferential voting system allowed the Liberal and National parties to compete and co-operate at the same time. By contrast, a variation of the preferential system known asoptional preferential voting proved a significant handicap to coalition co-operation inQueensland andNew South Wales, because significant numbers of voters do not express all useful preferences.
In March 1973, formerPrime MinisterWilliam McMahon publicly announced his support for a merger.[28] McMahon reiterated his view after Labor won the1974 election, andBilly Snedden, his successor as leader of the Liberal Party, also stated that he favoured a merger.[29]
During the 1980s, former Nationals MPPeter Nixon reviewed the party and "concluded it should seriously consider amalgamating with the Liberals".[30] Former Nationals leaderDoug Anthony wrote not long afterward, "Any objective and rational National Party member who read this report would have to accept that amalgamation was the only realistic course. Regrettably, there are still too many who don't want to read it and who don't want to face reality, that the role of a specialist party looking after the needs of rural people is in decline."[30] Nationals leaderIan Sinclair publicly rejected calls for a merger, citing the incompatibility of the National Party's conservatism and the "small-l liberal" wing of the Liberal Party.[31]
In July 1989, SenatorFred Chaney, the deputy leader of the Liberal Party, stated his tentative support for a merger, but noted that it could not be led by politicians and should come from the grassroots.[32]
In the wake of their2007 federal election loss, there was again talk of a merger in 2007 and 2008,[30] as a result of a shrinking National Party vote.[33][34][35] It was argued that the decline in the National vote is linked to a declining rural population, and National Party policies have become increasingly similar to those of the Liberal Party.[36] However, no merger took place outside of Queensland. In the federal parliament, members of the resultingLiberal National Party sat witheither the Liberals or the Nationals.
During the two coalitions of the United Australia Party and the Country Party between 1934 and 1943, the combined parties were often referred to as the United Australia Party – United Country Party, or UAP-UCP, including in official campaign material, despite the Country Party never officially including 'United' in its name.
A coalition between the Liberal and National Parties and their predecessors contested all but 3 federal elections between the 1925 and 2025 elections and often persisted in opposition, making the arrangement a fixture of Australian politics despite lacking any official organisation beyond the agreements between the two parties. As a result, most commentators and the general public often referred to it as 'the Coalition' with the definitive article and without qualification, and often as if it were a single party. Polling and electoral results contained atwo-party-preferred (TPP) vote which was based on Labor and the Coalition. TheAustralian Electoral Commission has distinguished between "traditional" (Coalition/Labor) two-party-preferred (TPP/2PP) contests, and "non-traditional" (for example,Independent,Greens, Liberal vs National) two-candidate-preferred (TCP/2CP) contests. At the2010 federal election, all eight seats which resulted in a two-candidate-preferred result were re-counted to also express a statistical-only "traditional" two-party-preferred result.[37]
As of 2022, the biggest voting blocs of the Coalition weremen, themiddle class (as opposed to theworking class), who make betweenA$45,001–A$80,000 per year, and have a non-tertiary qualification or no educational qualification.[38][39]Homeowners voted more for the Coalition than any other party, and theState ofQueensland was its biggest electorate bytwo-party-preferred vote percentage (though by primary vote,Tasmania was the state with the highest Coalition vote).[38]
The Coalition also gathered significant support from Australians in regional, rural and remote areas, whilst lacking significant support in most parts of the capital cities. However, there were regions of capital cities that do still vote for the Coalition; such as theHills District andSutherland and historically most of theEastern Suburbs andNorthern Suburbs of Sydney; some areas ofMelbourne's east and northeast; many areas ofBrisbane andPerth; and the southern part ofDarwin.
The Coalition had below-average support amongIndian[40] andMuslim[41] voters. Historically,Chinese Australians voted for the Coalition over Labor,[42] due to a perception that Liberal Party was more business-oriented than Labor. However, this had declined in the last years of the Coalition.[43] In the2022 Australian federal election, electorates with a higher concentration of Chinese-Australian voters experienced larger swings against the Coalition compared to other electorates; in the top 15 seats by Chinese ancestry, the swing against the Coalition on a two-party-preferred basis was 6.6 per cent, compared to 3.7 per cent in other seats.[44] This resulted in the Liberal Party losing many federal seats with large Chinese communities in 2022 to Labor (losingBennelong andReid inSydney andChisholm inMelbourne to Labor andKooyong in Melbourne to ateal independent), as well as losingAston in2023, which was the first time in over a century in which the government won a seat off the opposition in a by-election.[45] In the2023 New South Wales state election, the top 10 electorates in terms of Chinese ancestry all saw big swings to Labor.[46] However, the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party managed to hold many state seats with large Chinese communities (such as the Sydney seats ofDrummoyne,Epping,Holsworthy,Lane Cove,Miranda,Oatley andRyde).
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In the 2025 Australian federal election campaign,housing affordability and its link toimmigration were central points of contention between the Coalition leaderPeter Dutton and Prime MinisterAnthony Albanese.[47] In 2025, the Coalition has pledged to reduce the annual permanent migration intake from the current level of 180,000 to 140,000.[48]
The then-leader of the Coalition,Sussan Ley, delayed the release of the Coalition's new migration policy (originally expected before the end of 2025) following theBondi Beach terrorist attack in December 2025. She cited concerns about frayingsocial cohesion and the risk that a fresh debate on migration levels would be inflammatory during an extremely sensitive time. Instead of pursuing the migration debate, Ley shifted the Coalition's focus to national security andcounter-terrorism, calling for the immediate formation of anantisemitism and counter-terrorism taskforce.[49]
Elections where member parties subsequently formed government in coalition are shown inbold. Elections where a member party subsequently governed outside of coalition are shown initalics.
| Period | Alliance | Member parties | Federal elections | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1923–1931 | Nationalist–Country Coalition | Nationalist | NAT[50] | 1925 1928 1929 | |
| Country | CP[50] | ||||
| 1931–1934 | None | 1931[c] 1934[d] | |||
| 1934–1939 | United Australia–Country Coalition[e] | United Australia | UAP[50] | 1937 | |
| Country | CP | ||||
| 1939–1940 | None | N/A | |||
| 1940–1943 | United Australia–Country Coalition | United Australia | UAP | 1940 1943 | |
| Country | CP | ||||
| 1943–1946 | None | N/A | |||
| 1946–1972 | Liberal–Country Coalition | Liberal | LP[50] | 1946 1949 1951 1954 1955 1958 1961 1963 1966 1969 1972 | |
| Country | CP | ||||
| 1972–1974 | None | N/A | |||
| 1974–1987 | Liberal–National Coalition | Liberal | LP | 1974 1975 1977 1980 1983 1984 | |
| National[f] | NP[50] | ||||
| 1987 | None | 1987[d] | |||
| 1987–2025 | Liberal–National Coalition | Liberal | LP | 1990 1993 1996 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013 2016 2019 2022 2025 | |
| National | NP | ||||
| 2025 | None | N/A | |||
| 2025–2026 | Liberal–National Coalition | Liberal | LP | N/A | |
| National | NP | ||||
| 2026 | None | N/A | |||
| 2026–present | Liberal–National Coalition | Liberal | LP | N/A | |
| National | NP | ||||
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| Election | Leader | Deputy Leader | Votes | % | Seats | ± | Status | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1925 | Stanley Bruce | Nationalist | Earle Page | Country | 1,551,760 | 53.20 | 51 / 75 |  11 | Majority | ||
| 1928 | 1,286,208 | 49.56 | 42 / 75 |  9 | Majority | ||||||
| 1929 | 1,271,619 | 44.17 | 24 / 75 | 18 | Opposition | ||||||
| 1931 | Joseph Lyons | UAP | [g] | 1,330,097 | 41.91 | 38 / 75 | 24 | Majority | |||
| Earle Page | Country | 388,544 | 12.24 | 16 / 75 | 6 | Crossbench | |||||
| 1934 | Joseph Lyons | UAP | [h] | 1,313,561 | 36.99 | 33 / 74 | 5 | Majority | |||
| Earle Page | Country | 447,968 | 12.61 | 14 / 74 | 2 | ||||||
| 1937 | Joseph Lyons | UAP | Earle Page | Country | 1,774,805 | 49.26 | 44 / 74 | 2 | Majority | ||
| 1940 | Robert Menzies | Archie Cameron | 1,703,185 | 43.93 | 36 / 74 | 8 | Minority(1940–41) | ||||
| Opposition(1941–43) | |||||||||||
| 1943 | Arthur Fadden | Country | Billy Hughes | UAP | 1,248,506 | 30.45 | 23 / 74 | 13 | Opposition | ||
| 1946 | Robert Menzies | Liberal | Arthur Fadden | Country | 1,706,387 | 39.28 | 26 / 76 | 7 | Opposition | ||
| 1949 | 2,314,143 | 50.26 | 74 / 121 | 48 | Majority | ||||||
| 1951 | 2,298,512 | 50.34 | 69 / 121 | 5 | Majority | ||||||
| 1954 | 2,133,979 | 46.82 | 64 / 121 | 5 | Majority | ||||||
| 1955 | 2,093,930 | 47.63 | 75 / 122 | 11 | Majority | ||||||
| 1958 | John McEwen | 2,324,500 | 46.55 | 77 / 122 | 2 | Majority | |||||
| 1961 | 2,208,213 | 42.09 | 62 / 122 | 15 | Majority | ||||||
| 1963 | 2,520,321 | 46.03 | 72 / 122 | 10 | Majority | ||||||
| 1966 | Harold Holt | 2,853,890 | 49.98 | 82 / 124 | 10 | Majority | |||||
| 1969 | John Gorton | 2,649,219 | 43.33 | 66 / 125 | 16 | Majority | |||||
| 1972 | William McMahon | Doug Anthony | 2,737,911 | 41.48 | 58 / 125 | 8 | Opposition | ||||
| 1974 | Billy Snedden | 3,319,220 | 44.91 | 61 / 127 | 3 | Opposition[i] | |||||
| 1975 | Malcolm Fraser | National Country | 4,102,078 | 53.05 | 91 / 127 | 30 | Majority | ||||
| 1977 | 3,811,340 | 48.10 | 86 / 124 | 5 | Majority | ||||||
| 1980 | 3,853,549 | 46.40 | 74 / 125 | 12 | Majority | ||||||
| 1983 | National | 3,783,595 | 43.57 | 50 / 125 | 24 | Opposition | |||||
| 1984 | Andrew Peacock | Ian Sinclair | 3,872,707 | 44.69 | 66 / 148 | 16 | Opposition | ||||
| 1987 | John Howard | Liberal | [j] | 3,169,061 | 34.32 | 43 / 148 | 2 | Opposition | |||
| Ian Sinclair | National | 1,048,249 | 11.35 | 19 / 148 | 2 | ||||||
| 1990 | Andrew Peacock | Liberal | Charles Blunt | National | 4,302,127 | 43.46 | 69 / 148 | 7 | Opposition | ||
| 1993 | John Hewson | Tim Fischer | 4,681,822 | 44.27 | 65 / 147 | 4 | Opposition | ||||
| 1996 | John Howard | 5,103,859 | 46.90 | 94 / 148 | 29 | Majority | |||||
| 1998 | 4,352,795 | 39.18 | 80 / 148 | 14 | Majority | ||||||
| 2001 | John Anderson | 4,887,998 | 43.01 | 82 / 150 | 2 | Majority | |||||
| 2004 | 5,471,588 | 46.70 | 87 / 150 | 5 | Majority | ||||||
| 2007 | Mark Vaile | 5,229,024 | 42.09 | 65 / 150 | 22 | Opposition | |||||
| 2010 | Tony Abbott | Warren Truss | 5,365,529 | 43.32 | 72 / 150 | 7 | Opposition | ||||
| 2013 | 5,882,818 | 45.55 | 90 / 150 | 18 | Majority | ||||||
| 2016 | Malcolm Turnbull | Barnaby Joyce | 5,693,605 | 42.15 | 76 / 150 | 14 | Majority | ||||
| 2019 | Scott Morrison | Michael McCormack | 5,906,860 | 41.44 | 77 / 151 | 1 | Majority | ||||
| 2022 | Barnaby Joyce | 5,233,334 | 35.70 | 58 / 151 | 19 | Opposition | |||||
| 2025 | Peter Dutton | David Littleproud | 4,929,606 | 31.82 | 43 / 150 | 15 | Opposition | ||||
Coalition state and territory seats (and endorsed parties) | |
|---|---|
| NSW Parliament | NSW Assembly 35 / 93 24 / 93 11 / 93 NSW Council 14 / 42 9 / 42 5 / 42 |
| Vic Parliament | Vic Assembly 29 / 88 20 / 88 9 / 88 Vic Council 14 / 40 12 / 40 2 / 40 |
| QLD Parliament | 52 / 93 |
| WA Parliament | WA Assembly 7 / 59 6 / 59 WA Council10 / 59 2 / 59 |
| SA Parliament | SA House 13 / 47 SA Council8 / 22 |
| Tas Parliament | Tas House 14 / 35 Tas Council4 / 15 |
| ACT Parliament | 9 / 25 |
| NT Parliament | 17 / 25 |
A Coalition between theLiberal (and predecessors) andNational parties has existed without interruption inNew South Wales since 1927. Predecessors of the NSW Liberal Party, including the UAP, Nationalist Party and theDemocratic Party, maintained a coalition with the Country Party (old name of National Party).
The Liberal Party is led byKellie Sloane and the National Party byDugald Saunders. The Coalition won the2011 state election in a massive swing underBarry O'Farrell, the2015 election with a reduced majority underMike Baird, and the2019 election under Gladys Berejiklian. The Coalition led byDominic Perrottet lost the2023 state election and is in opposition since.
New South Wales is the only state where the non-Labor Coalition has never broken, and yet has also never merged. This remained the case even in 2011, when the Liberals won a majority in their own right but still retained the Coalition. On 10 September 2020, the Nationals threatened to move to the crossbench over a dispute regardingkoala protection laws,[51] but the issue was resolved the next day and the Nationals remained in the Coalition.
Due toBrisbane having a much smaller share ofQueensland's population compared to the other state capitals, Queensland is the only state in which the Nationals have ever consistently been the stronger non-Labor party. The Nationals were the senior partner in the non-Labor Coalition from 1925 until the Coalition was broken in 1983. At anelection held two months later, the Nationals underJoh Bjelke-Petersen came up one seat short of a majority, but later gained a majority when two Liberal MLAs crossed the floor to join the Nationals. The Nationals then governed in their own right until1989. The Coalition was renewed in 1991, and won power underRob Borbidge from 1996 to1998.
The Queensland Liberals and Nationals had contested separately for the Senate in federal elections until the2007 election, when they ran a join Senate ticket for the first time in 30 years.[52] In 2008, the two parties agreed to merge, forming theLiberal National Party (LNP), under the leadership of former NationalLawrence Springborg. Although it is dominated by former Nationals,[citation needed] it has full voting rights within the Liberal Party and observer status within the National Party. Springborg stood down in 2009, and was succeeded by former LiberalJohn-Paul Langbroek. The LNP won an overwhelming majority government in the2012 state election under the leadership of former LiberalCampbell Newman, who had taken over from Langbroek a year earlier. However, it lost power in2015 and remained in opposition for nearly a decade, before returning to power in 2024 under the leadership ofDavid Crisafulli.
At the federal level, 15 LNP MPs sit with the Liberals and six sit with the Nationals, including federal Nationals leaderDavid Littleproud. LNP SenatorsMatt Canavan andSusan McDonald sit with the Nationals, while the LNP's four other senators sit with the Liberals. The highest-profile LNP MP of the 2010s was former federal Nationals leader andDeputy Prime MinisterWarren Truss. The LNP has an informal agreement with its federal counterparts as to which party room in which LNP members will sit. Incumbent MPs retain their previous federal affiliations, whereas members who win seats from the ALP that previously belonged to the Coalition will sit with the previous member's party. An amicable division of seats was decided upon for new seats or seats that have never been won by the Coalition.[53] In practice, all LNP MPs from Brisbane and most LNP MPs from theGold Coast and theSunshine Coast sit with the Liberals, while those from rural seats usually sit with the Nationals.
Thestate branch of the Country Party merged with theLiberal Federation, the state branch of the UAP, in 1932 to form theLiberal and Country League. It later became the state division of the Liberal Party when the latter was formed in 1945.[54] A separate Country Party (laterNationals SA) was revived in 1963, though the main non-Labor party in South Australia continued to use the LCL name until it was also renamed to the Liberal Party in 1974.[55][56] The revived SA Nationals have never been successful in South Australia, due to the state's highly centralised population (some three-quarters of the population lives inAdelaide) and the Liberals' strong support in rural areas that would tilt National in most of the rest of Australia. The party's current incarnation has only elected two representatives:Peter Blacker from 1973 to 1993, andKarlene Maywald from 1997 to 2010.
From 2004 to 2010, Maywald was a Minister in theRann Labor government, before losing her seat at the 2010 South Australian state election, thereby informally creating a Labor–National coalition in South Australia. The National Party, at the time, rejected the notion that it was in a coalition with Labor at the state level. State National Party President John Venus told journalists, "We (The Nationals) are not in coalition with the Labor Party, we aren't in coalition with the Liberals, we are definitely not in coalition with anyone. We stand alone in South Australia as an independent party."Flinders University political scientistHaydon Manning disagreed, saying that it is "churlish to describe the government as anything but a coalition".[57] The party did not run candidates at the2010 federal election, but ran one candidate in the seat ofBarker and two for the Senate at the2013 election. The Nationals candidate for Barker and several other Coalition figures assured electors that any Nationals elected from South Australia would be part of the Coalition, after comments from the Liberal candidate to the contrary.[58]
The National Party has never done well inTasmania, even though its first leader,William McWilliams, was a Tasmanian. It has elected only two other lower house members. A Tasmania branch of the then-Country Party was formed in 1922 and briefly held the balance of power, but merged with the Nationalists in 1924. It was refounded in 1962, but never gained much ground. In 1969, Liberal MHAKevin Lyons, the son of former Prime Minister Lyons, pulled together most of the Tasmanian Country Party into theCentre Party, which held the balance of power inthat year's state election. It threw its support to the Liberals, and Lyons – the Centre Party's lone MHA – became Deputy Premier. The Liberal–Centre alliance fell apart in 1972, forcingan early election. In 1975, what remained of the Centre Party became the Tasmanian chapter of what was by now the National Country Party before fading away completely. A Tasmanian National Party branch was briefly revived in the 1990s before it too disappeared, leaving the Liberal Party as the sole major non-Labor party in the state.[59] In 2018, SenatorSteve Martin, formerly of theJacqui Lambie Network, joined the Nationals, becoming the party's first federal member from Tasmania in either chamber in 90 years.[60] However, Martin lost his bid for a new term.
A Coalition between theLiberal andNational parties exists inVictoria. The Liberal Party is led byJess Wilson and the National Party byDanny O'Brien.[61]
The Country Party was the stronger coalition partner on multiple occasions from the 1920s through to the 1950s, and Country leaders served asPremier of Victoria on five separate occasions. However, the relationship between the two parties was somewhat strained for most of the second half of the 20th century. In 1948, the coalition was broken when the Liberal leader and PremierThomas Hollway sacked Country leaderJohn McDonald as Deputy Premier. In March 1949, the Liberals renamed themselves the Liberal and Country Party as part of an effort to merge the two non-Labor parties in Victoria.[62] However, McDonald saw this as an attempted Liberal takeover of the Country Party,[63][64] and the Country Party turned the proposed merger down. As a result, both parties competed against each other and fought elections separately from 1952 to 1989. The presence ofJohn McEwen, a Victorian, as number-two man in the federal government from 1958 to 1971 (including a brief stint as interim Prime Minister) did little to change this.
The Liberals and Nationals reached a Coalition agreement in 1990. They fought and won the1992 and1996 elections as a Coalition under the leadership ofJeff Kennett. Although the Liberals won enough seats to govern alone, Kennett retained the Nationals in his government. WhenPeter Ryan became leader of the Nationals shortly after the Kennett government's1999 election defeat, he terminated the Coalition agreement and led the Nationals into the2002 and2006 elections separately from the Liberals.[65] However, the Coalition agreement was renewed in 2008 and the Victorian Liberal and National parties went into the2010 election as a Coalition.[66] The Coalition ended up winning the 2010 election with a one-seat margin under the leadership ofTed Baillieu, who resigned in 2013 and was succeeded byDenis Napthine. The Coalition lost power at the2014 election. The Coalition arrangement has been maintained while the two parties are in opposition.
According to The Age, between November 2018 and November 2021, the Coalition's Legislative Council members voted with the Andrews Government's position 28.9% of the time; of the parties in the Legislative Council, only theLiberal Democratic Party had a lower figure (22.1%).[67]
 | This section needs to beupdated. The reason given is:Liberal Party is now the senior opposition party since the 2025 state election. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(May 2025) |
TheCountry Party was the stronger coalition partner from the1933 state election to the1947 state election, although the Coalition did not form government during this period. Western Australia has never had a premier from the Country/National Party.
In May 1949, the Liberal and Country League was formed to attempt to merge Country Party (then called County Democratic League or CDL) andLiberal Party together.[68] This did not eventuate and the CDL did not join the new party.[69]
TheNational Party was in Coalition with the Liberal Party government from 1993 to 2001 (seeHendy Cowan), but the Coalition was subsequently broken. In 2008, the Liberals underColin Barnett, the Nationals underBrendon Grylls, and independentJohn Bowler formed a minority government after the2008 election. However, it was not characterised as a "traditional coalition", with limitedcabinet collective responsibility for National cabinet members.[70]Tony Crook was elected as the WA Nationals candidate for the seat ofO'Connor at the2010 federal election. Although some reports initially counted Crook as a National MP, and thus part of the Coalition, Crook sat as acrossbencher.[71]
The Liberals won enough seats for a majority in their own right in the2013 state election, but Barnett had announced before the election that he would retain the coalition with the Nationals.[72] However, Barnett would have likely had to keep the Nationals in his government in any event. According to the ABC'sAntony Green, the rural weighting in theLegislative Council all but forces the WA Liberals to depend on National support even when the Liberals have enough support to govern alone.[73] The Barnett government was heavily defeated at the2017 state election, and the two parties went their separate ways with Liberal Party being the sole opposition party.
In the2021 election, the Liberal Party ended up winning fewer seats than the National Party, headed byMia Davies, with the National Party gaining opposition status and Davies becoming the first Nationals opposition leader since1947.[74] Following the election, the Liberal Party and Nationals Party entered into a formal alliance to form opposition, with National Party being the senior party and the Liberal Party being the junior party in the alliance. Shadow ministerial positions were also held by parliamentary members of both parties. This was similar to the agreements between both parties when they were in government following the2008 and2013 elections.[75] Similar to the 2008 and 2013 agreements, the deputy leader of the senior party, Nationals deputy leaderShane Love, was the deputy opposition leader, instead of the leader of the junior party, Liberal Party leaderDavid Honey. Under the alliance, each party maintained their independence, and could speak out on issues when there was a disagreement with their partner.[76][77]
| This section needs to beupdated. The reason given is:CLP Senator Jacinta Price defecting from the National Party to Liberal Party in 2025, with further elaboration needed on how she could swap party rooms. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(May 2025) |
The two parties' branches in the Northern Territory merged in 1974, forming theCountry Liberal Party. The CLP governed the Territory from 1974 to 2001 and from 2012 to 2016. The CLP retains full voting rights within the federal National Party, and has observer status with the federal Liberal Party. The CLP directs its federal members of the House and Senate whether to sit with the federal Liberals or Nationals.[78] During theJoh for Canberra campaign, there was an independentNorthern Territory National Party which competed independent from it. In practice, since the mid-1980s, CLP House members have sat with the Liberals while CLP Senators sit with the Nationals. For example,Natasha Griggs sat with the Liberals when she held theDarwin-area seat ofSolomon from 2010 to 2016. CLP SenatorNigel Scullion was the leader of the Nationals in the Senate from 2007 to 2008, when he was succeeded byBarnaby Joyce. He was the federal deputy leader of the Nationals, alongside Truss, from 2007 to 2013. Joyce became federal Nationals deputy leader after his successful transition to the House of Representatives at the 2013 election, and Scullion returned as the Nationals Senate leader.
The National Party is not affiliated in theAustralian Capital Territory, leaving theLiberal Party as the sole major non-Labor party in the territory.
The Liberal–National Coalition (LNP) looks increasingly on the nose with the electorate
