The Liberals and Nationals have reached an agreement to reunite a week after their dramatic split.
The Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, will announce her shadow cabinet later on Wednesday after the Nationals endorsed the deal at a virtual party room meeting.
Liberal sources confirmed Ley has started contacting MPs to inform them of their roles in her new frontbench. The shadow cabinet will include 14 Liberals and six Nationals.
Guardian Australia has confirmed former Nationals leaders Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack have been dumped to the backbench.
The two senior MPs spoke out against the Nationals’ initial decision to abandon the Liberals, causing friction among colleagues.
As reported in Guardian Australia, the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, sought party room approval for several safeguards the Liberals wanted attached to the country party’s policy priorities.
Speaking ahead of the meeting, Littleproud said he had “comfort” in the proposal that would be presented to his colleagues, indicating he expected a deal would be agreed.
The reunion rounds off a tumultuous seven days in which the Nationals split from the Liberals for the first time in 38 years, only to return to the negotiating table within 48 hours after crisis talks between the two leaders.
After initially refusing to immediately support the Nationals’ ultimatums, Ley convened a party room meeting on Friday in which Liberal MPs gave “in-principle support” to policies on nuclear power, a $20bn regional future fund, divestiture powers and regional telecommunications.
In the final stages of negotiations, the Liberals insisted on several conditions, including an assurance that divestiture powers – which would extend to “big-box retailers” such as Ikea and Harvey Norman – would be a “last resort” and subject to a public interest test.
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Ley’s shadow cabinet will be substantially different to the one Peter Dutton took to the 3 May election, after Dutton and fellow frontbenchers David Coleman, Michael Sukkar and Perin Davey lost their seats.
While the Coalition agreement has been struck, more Nationals are voicing strong criticism of Littleproud’s leadership, raising further questions over whether he will retain his position leading the party.
Colin Boyce, the MP for Flynn, gave several media interviews on Wednesday blasting Littleproud and refusing to back the leader.
Boyce claimed Littleproud had misled the Nationals and hadn’t provided all the information to his party room about discussions with Ley, and that his initial move to seek exemptions from cabinet solidarity “makes no sense whatsoever”.
“How can you support a bloke that misleads the party room? I’m calling him out, I can’t do it,” Boyce told Sky News.
“You take these four policies that David took to the first meeting with Sussan Ley, again, none of that has come through the party room. It wasn’t discussed. We’re served this stuff up and expected to agree with it with no input whatsoever.”
Boyce claimed “party leadership” provided advice to the Nationals party room which was “unfounded and wrong” and that colleagues had not been given all the facts about discussions with the Liberals.
