It will be hard for the Nats to fight back if the Libs want their seats

The impasse in the negotiations between the two parties over policy issues like nuclear power, net zero and regional funding along with demands by the Nationals for more portfolio allocations at more senior levels, has ended the Coalition.

Such a split is not for the first time.

Following the Coalition's 1972 federal election loss, the Nationals went their own way blaming the Liberals' disunity for the election failure. Nevertheless, driven by self-interest, they came back a year later.

And the 1987 Queensland Nationals' "Joh for PM" stunt split the federal Coalition and cost John Howard the election.

It was temporary, but it left lasting wounds.

The Coalition has long been described as "marriage of convenience" with the parties bound together by mutual self-interest of winning office than a real partnership of shared values.

For the Liberals, the Coalition "convenience" was allowing them to win and retain office that, with only a couple of exceptions, would otherwise have been impossible.

For the Nationals, Coalition brought them to office enabling them to hold numerous portfolios and to extract policy goodies for their regional electoral base and so to ward off regional predators.

But these conditions of being in office no longer apply. The Albanese government looks set to be in power for some time ahead.

So, for some Liberals, the Coalition ending provides long yearned for opportunities.

It means no longer having to accommodate the Nationals' expensive subsidies for their regional fatted sacred cows that undermined the Liberals' more economic approach.

Now too the Liberals can adopt a more progressive'social agenda previously constrained by the Nationals, that made many Liberals believe had caused them to lose support from a changing modern Australia.

Also, the Liberals now can openly compete for any National Party seat, not restricted by coalition agreements. Liberals have been gradually doing this for some time.

Liberal leader Sussan Ley won Farrer once held by Nationals leader Tim Fischer.

Now, there will be no holding back. There might even, in the wake senator Jacinta Yangapi Nampijinpa Price's recent defection to the Liberals, be more.

The Nationals have another view.

They see the Coalition's loss of office as the consequence of the Liberals' policy me-tooism with Labor, restraining the Coalition from having a real point of difference, betraying its core values and disillusioning its base.

While the Liberals lose a swag of seats at elections, the Nationals point to their stability, ignoring the location and demography of their seats that make them easier to retain.

The Nationals have also long been smarting that despite gifting the Liberals office, they have not enjoyed the number or seniority of portfolios they deserve.

All this overlooks how the Liberals and Nationals in coalition together gave the non- Labor cause a breadth and range of members and policies that Labor could not match.

But now, separate, the limitations of each party will be exposed.

The Liberals may be a largely urban party but their base is probably less progressive than thought. Being in coalition with the Nationals sometimes restrained them from adopting too easily some of the more fashionable policy trends and thus losing support.

Remember, it was the Nationals who came out first against the Voice referendum, despite Liberal misgivings, and which eventually gave the Coalition a considered significant win.

As for the Nationals, despite dropping the Country Party nomenclature decades ago, they remain regionally based, confined to three states and with a narrow policy repertoire.

They have little retaliatory power to Liberal incursions into their vulnerable seats and have long been in retreat from their traditional areas.

Now, in the wake of this split, many issues will need to be resolved like how the two parties will co-operate in opposition concerning parliamentary tactics and policies?

Who will speak on what issues where there might be shared interests but competing politics?

Also, expect embittered three-corner contests campaigns, costing considerable resources.

This broken Coalition will stand in stark contrast to the more united and tactically adroit Albanese Labor government.

Voters desert divided political parties as Labor learnt during the 1950s.