Liberals to meet this afternoon to discuss National Party demands

ABC NEWS (Australia)

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.

Transcript

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.

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