Spat over coalition disunity continues

Senior opposition MPs have played down the continuing spat over the collapse in party discipline in the Senate last week. Opposition infrastructure spokesman Andrew Robb on Friday said the Liberal Party and the Nationals would work through problems that prompted four Nationals senators to defy orders and vote their own way twice last week.
Junior South Australian Liberal backbencher Jamie Briggs was the latest to join the
squabble, labelling Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce a renegade and calling on
him to decide whether he wants to be a team player or on his own.
Mr Briggs' outburst followed comments by frontbencher Tony Abbott, who used an
opinion piece published in The Australian newspaper on Friday to take a swipe at
Senator Joyce and his colleagues.
"Nationals senators need to understand that it's impossible to be part of a
coalition only when it suits them," Mr Abbott wrote.
He said he would welcome the Nationals into the Liberal Party or gladly become part
of a merged Liberal-National party if that would make the rebels feel more welcome.
But he warned that disunity would make it harder to defeat the government, possibly
tempting the calling of an early election.
"Incorrigible mavericks might sometimes win a seat as an independent or minor party
candidates but would ultimately find themselves less newsworthy and far less
influential," Mr Abbott said.
Mr Briggs said if Senator Joyce wanted to be a maverick he could do it outside the
party.
"You can't have a situation where people get special privileges to go out and say
whatever they want to say," Mr Briggs told Adelaide Now.
But Mr Robb said the coalition had lasted for 60 years and had always managed to
deal with disagreements.
"We've dealt with those in the past, we will deal with this one, we've got to work
through it," Mr Robb told Sky News on Friday.
"I think the best way to deal with it is internally and not to be continuing a
process of discussion in the public arena."
Nationals leader Warren Truss said it would be "helpful" if people kept their views
to themselves.
"I think we could have managed the issue better, we all know that and we'll make
sure we do it better in the future," Mr Truss said.