SYDNEY, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Australia’s conservative opposition coalition reunited on Sunday after the junior partner National Party severed ties last month with the Liberal Party over its decision to back government hate speech laws drafted in the wake of the Bondi massacre.
“The coalition is back together and looking to the future, not to the past,” Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley said alongside National Party leader David Littleproud in a media conference televised from Canberra.
The coalition split, the second in less than a year, was triggered after Australia’s parliament passed the centre-left Labor government’s anti-hate laws in the wake of the mass shooting that killed 15 in December. The laws were backed by the Liberal Party but opposed by some National Party senators.
“It’s been disappointing, we’ve got to where we are but it was over a substantive issue,” Littleproud said.
Under the long-standing partnership, the Nationals broadly represent the interests of rural communities and the Liberals city seats.
The coalition has come under recent pressure from populist Senator Pauline Hanson’s anti-immigration One Nation party, which has surged in polling, while the Liberal Party lost a swath of seats at last year’s federal election, won by Labor in a landslide.
(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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