Mass walkout of shadow cabinet is only the latest chapter in the Nationals’ chaotic decline

With so little fanfare that almost nobody noticed, the Nationals senators Bridget McKenzie and Ross Cadell first defied their colleagues on the floor of parliament nearly six months ago.Late one night in September, the pair voted with Pauline Hanson and One Nation on a motion about migration, ignoring the pleas of Coalition colleagues, including Liberal Anne Ruston, not to cross the floor.One Nation’s plan – attempting to establish an inquiry into “the impact of high immigration on the Australian economy” – failed and the Liberals looked the other way.But on Wednesday, in a rushed special sitting to debate Labor’s hate speech laws, McKenzie and Cadell did it again. This time it mattered.Crossing the floor with fellow frontbencher Susan McDonald on Tuesday night, the trio all but goaded the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, to sack them.On Wednesday morning, the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, warned Ley via a leaked letter that accepting their resignations would spark a mass walkout by Nationals MPs, decimating her opposition ministry and leaving the Coalition agreement in tatters.Littleproud followed through, helping bring about the biggest crisis on the right of Australian politics in decades, but only the latest chapter in the Nationals’ chaotic decline.All eight remaining frontbenchers quit and Littleproud announced he was resigning as leader.The fact that the self-immolation, likely to speed up the end of Ley’s leadership, came about over Labor’s plans to target hate preachers and extremist organisations only shows how tenuous the Nationals’ partnership with the Liberals had become.The spark was not a principled policy difference, but Nationals senators wanting the right to freelance on parliamentary votes and ignore the long-held convention of cabinet solidarity.Ego, ideology and arrogance caused the short-lived first split with the Liberals after last year’s federal election and the latest collapse has been driven by the same forces and many of the same individuals.Ever since Barnaby Joyce’s erratic tenure as leader and deputy prime minister, the junior coalition partner has swerved badly away from representing regional Australia, holding the country back on key issues, including meaningful efforts to address climate change. They have thumbed their nose at transparency and accountability, pitched to Sky News and moved further and further away from voters the Coalition needs to win back.The real problem plaguing the Liberals and the Nationals is the lack of authority Ley and Littleproud command in their respective party rooms. Neither had the political heft to call the shots this week.Ley’s decision on Wednesday night to try to put things on hold might buy her time, but Littleproud’s leadership is likely over.The Nationals backbencher Matt Canavan – long in control of the policy calls and the politics inside the Nationals party room – will continue to push around his colleagues, with little regard for the voters the Coalition needs to win back.As has so often been the case in the past few years, Labor remains the big winner from the mess.Anthony Albanese has struggled in his response to the Bondi terror attacks, but will start the year stronger because of the Coalition chaos. It remains unclear who he will be facing in the first question time in a couple of weeks.Albanese must surely be the luckiest bloke in Canberra.Probably the Liberals and Nationals are better off going their separate ways. Almost nothing could be worse than them staying together.