The Liberal party will meet this afternoon to discuss its position on the National party's four policy demands. Both parties have agreed to restart negotiations, just days after the nationals quit the coalition.
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00:00It's been a week of developments on this, will they, won't they get back together.
00:06The latest is that the Liberal Party will hold another meeting, the second since this
00:12agreement to restart negotiations.
00:15Today, it will be held online at 1pm today, this meeting of the Liberal Party room, where
00:21they will discuss this list of four policy demands from their former coalition partner
00:27in the Nationals.
00:29Those policies are nuclear energy, the $20 billion regional future fund, the divestiture
00:38powers for supermarkets, as well as improved phone and internet services in rural and regional
00:46Australia.
00:47The Liberal Party will today consider each of those four policies, and if they can reach
00:52an agreement as to whether they will back those, which is what the National Party has
00:58been calling for, and if they can't reach an agreement today on those four areas, or some
01:03of them, then they will decide on a process about how to continue those discussions going
01:09forward.
01:10Both parties are keen to see these negotiations progress and want a resolution sooner rather
01:18than later, as long as they can both achieve what they want.
01:23In terms of how this process has unfolded, on Tuesday, we saw this decision from the Nationals
01:29to part ways with the Liberal Party.
01:33Then yesterday, this agreement to restart those negotiations.
01:37There's been a lot of contributions as to how this process has unfolded.
01:42Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has also added his words to that, speaking to the Insiders
01:48podcast.
01:49I think this holding a gun to the Liberal Party's head, which is what the Nats are doing, is
01:56really, really unwise.
01:58It's stupid politically, because if Susan Lee agrees to it, then people will say, there you
02:04go again, the Liberals are doing, you know, the tail's wagging the dog, the Liberals are doing
02:09the Nationals bidding.
02:10There's a lot of disquiet within both parties about this process and how the other side
02:18of the equation has managed it.
02:21Both leaders trying to frame this agreement to at least progress those discussions as a
02:28win for them and pointing the blame or the fact that it's suggesting that the other side
02:34of the equation has been the one to offer concessions here, regardless of the outcome.
02:40And it looks likely that there will be an agreement to do with nuclear policy in less changes
02:46than what was proposed before the election, but the agreement to remove the moratorium on
02:52nuclear power.
02:54Regardless of that, though, both leaders won't be able to, neither leader will be able to emerge
03:01unscathed from this.
03:04Thank you very much.