Sussan Ley reunites Liberal and Nationals coalition after Bondi shooting split

Opposition leader Sussan Ley with Liberal and Nationals MPs behind her, during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday February 3, 2026. Photo / Getty Images

Australia’s right-leaning Opposition coalition reunited on Sunday after splitting in a public spat over the legislative response to the Bondi Beach mass shooting.

The centre-right Liberal Party and the rural-focused Nationals, which have jointly governed Australia for most of the past century, said they had overcome their differences.

“The coalition is back together and looking to the future, not the past. We’re squarely focused on representing the Australian people and fighting for their needs,” Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley told a news conference in Canberra.

“I acknowledge that this has been a difficult time. It has been a difficult time for millions of our coalition supporters and many other Australians who rely on our two great parties to provide scrutiny and national leadership,” she said.

The two-party conservative alliance collapsed less than three weeks ago in a row over hate crime laws introduced after the December 14 shooting that killed 15 people at a Jewish festival on Sydney’s Bondi Beach.

It was the coalition’s second divorce following a brief separation when it suffered a crushing general election defeat in May 2025.

In the latest dispute, Ley forced three National Party senators to resign from senior coalition posts after they voted against the hate speech laws in defiance of an earlier agreement between the parties to back the legislation.

The trio said they opposed the hate speech laws because they were concerned its scope may be too broad.

The disagreement rapidly escalated into a break-up of the coalition.

The Liberal Party leader said both parties had patched up with an agreement that neither party could overturn decisions taken by the coalition’s joint “shadow Cabinet” of senior lawmakers.

They also agreed that National Party lawmakers, including the three senators who had resigned, could return to the shadow Cabinet in March, local media said.

The next general election must be held by May 2028 after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s centre-left Labor Party won power by a wide margin last year.

– Agence France-Presse