In the event of a hung parliament, one wildcard has been largely overlooked – the Nationals | Australian election 2025

If the Coalition wins the election, it will face a concerted push from its junior partner, the Nationals, to weaken and even abandon climate initiatives and promote coal as an interim measure in the Coalition’s nuclear power plan.

That would put Peter Dutton and the Liberals between a rock and a hard place should he seek to form a minority government, given that might require the support of environmentally minded crossbenchers.

The teal independents are likely to demand a ban on new coal projects, limited or no new gas projects, and a clear path toward net zero that minimises the use of fossil fuels as the price of their support.

But that would put them in direct conflict with the Nationals, who have their own shopping list of policies as the price for their continued support in a Coalition government.

Some Nationals have been strident in their support for new coalmines and withdrawing from the Paris agreement.

Despite the longevity of the partnership between the Liberals and Nationals, there have been times over the past 40 years when it has looked decidedly shaky. After each election there is a formal negotiation, which tends to bring differences into sharp focus.

With minority government the Nationals could enjoy more sway.

Potential deals with teals

To form government without the crossbench, either side needs 76 seats. Most polls are pointing to both major parties falling short as the likely outcome.

If the Coalition manages to get 68-72 seats, the maths start to get interesting. It can probably count on support from Queenslander Bob Katter, South Australia’s Rebekha Sharkie and possibly Dai Le, a former Liberal councillor who holds the once-safe Labor seat of Fowler in western Sydney.

But it would also need one or more teal independents.

That’s where the Nationals come in. In the 45th and 46th parliaments the Nationals demonstrated how the tail could sometimes wag the dog.

As tensions over climate policy built during the Turnbull government, the former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce extracted concessions about coal remaining in the energy mix. Joyce also played a key part in scuttling Turnull’s signature policy, the national energy guarantee.

After Joyce lost the leadership he was replaced by Michael McCormack, but energy policy also proved his downfall. He was blamed by his colleagues for not extracting enough concessions from the then Liberal leader, Scott Morrison, leading to a party room coup and Joyce’s return.

The cost of the Coalition bending to the Nationals was evident in the 2022 election result.

The Nationals rejected setting a 2030 emissions target, leaving the Coalition with an incomplete energy policy that resulted in a wave of pro-climate independents winning moderate Liberal seats.

David Littleproud has been leader since the last election and, by all accounts, enjoys a good relationship with his fellow Queenslander Dutton. But getting on with the Liberals can be a negative for a Nationals leader.

Insiders say Joyce was just two weeks away from launching another challenge to Littleproud in February last year, before an incident in the Canberra suburb of Braddon where he was found sprawled on the pavement, speaking on his phone.

The good news for Littleproud is that two Joyce supporters, Keith Pitt and David Gillespie, are retiring at this election. That could make the leadership more secure, though which way new Nationals MPs will vote remains to be seen.

In a party room of just 20, it doesn’t take much for the numbers to shift, putting pressure on Littleproud to keep as many of his MPs happy as possible – and that can play into policy.

Hostility to Paris agreement

The Nationals’ views on climate change range from outright scepticism and disdain for the Paris agreement through to cautious support for climate action, provided farming interests can be insulated.

With Donald Trump pulling the US out of the Paris agreement, several renegade Nationals are calling for Australia to follow suit.

“We are trying to stay at a party that everyone has left – the net zero party,” the Nationals senator Matt Canavan said this month. He also reposted a Trump post on X, calling for a resumption of energy production using “BEAUTIFUL CLEAN COAL”.

It’s a refrain that is being echoed by Joyce and his fellow Queenslander Colin Boyce.

In contrast, Littleproud declined an invitation from the Sky News host Chris Kenny in January to jettison the Nationals’ support for a net zero target.

The Nationals are officially on board with the Coalition policy of building six nuclear reactors at taxpayers’ expense as the major policy to deliver on net zero.

But the “glide path” towards net zero under the Coalition will probably be very contentious, particularly as many Nationals openly want an expansion of coal as well as gas, and they want to heavily restrict renewables projects in the regions.

Dutton has said he will set a 2035 climate target after the election, as required under the Paris agreement, but once more this could be a major flashpoint within the Coalition.

Littleproud has hinted that the Nationals envisage little progress in cutting emissions until very close to 2050, because of how long it would take to build the proposed nuclear plants.

“There will be a ramp up at the end in us achieving that goal of net zero by 2050,” he said on Sky News.

Several Nationals want coal as well as gas to be part of the transition path and for renewables, particularly wind power, to be heavily restricted.

“Let’s just build power stations of ALL types using ALL of Australia’s amazing God-given energy resources,” senator Matt Canavan said on social media in March.

In contrast, the opposition energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, has highlighted gas generation as the main transition path but has been largely silent on coal.

He said at the Australian Pipelines and Gas Association conference in October that the Coalition policy was “aimed at sending a message to industry and trading partners alike that the Coalition backs gas”.

Some Nationals want the government to abandon the safeguard mechanism, which is aimed at limiting industrial emissions, branding it a carbon tax.

“Labor is crying crocodile tears for our aluminium and steel jobs,” Canavan said in March, referring to US tariffs on these sectors. “Meanwhile Labor has imposed a more than $5bn carbon tax (ie ‘safeguard mechanism’) on the same aluminium and steel industries to get to net zero by 2050. If Labor really cared, just remove the carbon tax!”

The Liberals have said they will make changes to the safeguard mechanism, but not abolish it.

The Nationals also want the vehicle emissions standard scrapped. The shadow transport minister, Bridget McKenzie, a National, has called Labor’s vehicle emission standard “poorly designed” and said the Coalition would have “more to say” about it when the opposition releases its transport policy before the election.

The Nationals also want to reverse the increases in fuel taxes introduced in July 2023, calling them “a truckie tax” that drives up freight costs. But this increase raised significant revenue – $2.6bn.

Further flashpoints loom

Littleproud wants the Coalition to go much further than restricting offshore windfarms, as Dutton has already promised, and also restrict onshore wind development.

While campaigning against the Illawarra offshore wind zone last year, he said: “The Coalition’s energy policy will show investors Australia doesn’t need large-scale industrial windfarms, whether they be offshore or onshore.”

Queensland Nationals MPs are just as strident.

“In my electorate of Flynn, this is ground zero, and it is reckless energy policy, with dozens and dozens of these projects all over the Flynn electorate,” Colin Boyce told parliament in February.

Reality, however, might be overtaking the Nationals. In March Rio Tinto signed a major solar power and battery deal with Edify Energy to power its aluminium plant at Gladstone.

Another potential flashpoint will be native forest logging. On this, Dutton and his Nationals counterpart appear aligned, though the degree of passion is stronger in the junior Coalition partner.

Victoria’s ban on native forest logging, which came in at the start of 2024, has deeply disappointed the Nationals and there could be efforts to unpick it. They will oppose plans to reduce or stop native forest logging in Tasmania and NSW.

“A Dan-made disaster which will devastate our communities and take a generation to recover from,” said the federal MP for Gippsland, the Nationals’ Darren Chester, referring to former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews.

The teals, on the other hand, have made ending native forest logging one of their central demands.

Some Nationals have suggested that if the Coalition forms government it will play nice with the crossbench only for a short time – perhaps a year – before declaring the government unworkable and calling a fresh election.

They posit that minority government will be so unpopular with the public, and the independents will be so damaged by any attempts to find compromise, that the Coalition would then be returned to power in its own right.

Then it would return to normal programming, with the Nationals in the box seat to drive the direction of policy.