Member for Mallee - Transcript - Sky News- Thursday 22 January 2026

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‍DR ANNE WEBSTER MP
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR MALLEE

TOPICS:

Coalition breakdown, Labor’s omnibus hate bill, National Party, Liberal Party, cabinet solidarity, social cohesion, national security, David Littleproud, Sussan Ley, Liberal leadership, effective opposition.

KENNY

Let's go to Nationals MP Anne Webster now, the member for Mallee joining us from Mildura in Victoria. Good to talk to you. Anne. Now tell us about why The Nationals have blown up the Coalition - what is the point of this? Because you know you have to put it back together and put it back together as soon as possible.

WEBSTER

Thanks, Chris, great to be with you. It has been a torrid week. I actually want to go directly to what has driven us to this point, and that is a Prime Minister who has truncated, guillotined, tried to push through a shambolic omnibus bill, which needed a whole bunch of work before we even got to Canberra. We received it less than 24 hours before, putting the pressure on both the National Party and the Liberal Party. The National Party met 10 times. That's a record, I think, in about 48 hours, trying to do our best to improve a bad bill. Ultimately, we made a choice on the Tuesday afternoon that we wanted to push more amendments through the Senate that night, and so we abstained from the vote in the House in the hope that we would be able to get those amendments through in the Senate. That did not take place, our senators were left standing on their own - or sitting on their own -  and consequently, a decision we had taken earlier in the day was that we would resign with them, which is protocol if you don't go with cabinet solidarity (even though that's now being brought into question). So, the difficulty has been, there was no Joint Party Room. There was no way for us to come together as a Coalition, as we always do, to pass legislation. That did not happen. Albanese managed to bring the legislation into the House while we were still talking about amendments. And mind you, the Labor Party was also trying to bring their own amendments. You know, it's a disaster.

KENNY

It's a disaster. But, I mean, get down in the weeds of all that stuff if you like, but the bottom line here is, you've got a government that should be under pressure for the way it's completely mismanaged social cohesion and national security in this country. And I think the voting public have got a right to expect that the Opposition, that the Coalition, can come to a unified position and stick to it instead of fracturing and going in a million different directions.

WEBSTER

Well, again, you've got to go back to process. I agree with you. We all want to play Kumbaya and sing it together but the fact is that when things are wrong, when principles are violated - that is, due process -  that is our responsibility. We are legislators. We are sent to Canberra to fight for our electorates. We all do that. In the National Party, we had very frank conversations and ultimately came to the very sad conclusion that if our senators were … if their resignations were accepted, then we would also resign with them.

KENNY

I got to say, I think it was just a mistake to be rushing to Canberra to try and pass laws anyway. The government has failed. It's failed in government, in social leadership, in law enforcement and intelligence, and you're playing their game of pretending that passing more laws is going to fix the situation. But that aside, I want to go to David Littleproud, your leader, and show something of what he had to say today. Have a look.

LITTLEPROUD

We had a juncture where no one was prepared to serve in a Sussan Ley ministry, and that the … she has forced the Coalition into an untenable position. That's the sad place that we've got to. There was an opportunity that she could have grabbed in understanding the unique nature of the circumstances that were put in front of her. It all later, the decision process ultimately always came back at her feet. She made that decision. She knew the consequence.

KENNY

Yeah, he's made it very directly personal about the Liberal leader. Of course, Sussan Ley is the one trying to manage all of this. A lot of Liberals feeling this is the Nats now telling them who should lead their party, and they're not going to swallow that very ..  very easily.

WEBSTER

Absolutely, The Nationals are not telling the Liberals who should lead their party, but it must be a relationship where there is respect and where under the extenuating circumstances of the deep mess of 48 hours of trying to get this legislation stopped, slowed down, more scrutiny on it - which is our right to call for - Sussan Ley made the decision to accept the resignations, she didn't have to do that. But once that was done, then it was over, because we as a party all resigned. You can't have two parties come together and only one party has shadow ministry positions. That's not how it works. Yeah. Look, the ball is in their court.

KENNY

The precedent was there. She could have … she could have let those shadow ministers stay in Shadow Cabinet. Maybe she felt pressure, because she'd already had two Liberals leave Shadow Cabinet earlier, and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and, of course, Andrew Hastie. But how do you get through this? Surely you need to get back together as a Coalition very quickly - forget about for the sake of your own parties: for the sake of the country, so we have an effective opposition?

WEBSTER

Chris, you have an effective opposition when we stand on principle, we don't play the politics. We stand on principle. And I can tell you right now, every member of my Party is absolutely aware of the weight on our shoulders to behave in the right way. We want to see a strong Opposition. We do not want to be Labor-lite. We do not want to be passing laws that should not be passed and there should be greater scrutiny. Our job is to hold Albanese to account. He has … look, honestly, I think of the Sorcerer's Apprentice and the mess that has ensued. And if, if the Prime Minister could have made a better plan, I don't know what it would be, to create the kind of chaos that we have! I am very confident - very confident - that we can walk through this, that we can come to an arrangement again at some point in time, I don't think our Party is keen to rush into another relationship. Things need to be sorted out, but we need to give the Liberal Party due respect to go through their own processes. Review is absolutely necessary. I am very confident of The Nationals’ position, we strongly endorse David as our leader. There is no question about that, because I know there's been a narrative out there today, David has done an incredible job, and we stand by him.

KENNY

Yeah. Well, good … good words there, good intention. Let's hope you get back to it pretty quickly and strongly, Anne, because this government certainly needs to be held to account. Thanks so much for joining us. Anne Webster, there joining us from Mildura in Victoria now.

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