Liberal–National Coalition

The Liberal–National Coalition, commonly known simply as the Coalition or the LNP, is an alliance of centre-right to right-wing political parties that forms one of the two major groupings in Australian federal politics. Its two members are the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia (previously known as the Country Party and the National Country Party). The Coalition and its main opponent, the Australian Labor Party (ALP), are often regarded as operating in a two-party system.

The Coalition has existed in some form since 1923, initially involving the Liberal Party's predecessors the Nationalist Party and United Australia Party. It has historically been a stable alignment for long periods in both government and opposition, including at three elections where the Liberal Party won enough seats to govern in its own right. The Coalition was last in government federally from 2013 to 2022. The stability between both the Liberal and National parties (and their predecessors) has been punctuated by six breaks in the agreement, including the 1931, 1934 and 1987 federal elections which the parties contested separately. Most recently, the National Party withdrew from the Coalition for a brief period following the 2025 election, before a new agreement was reached and the alliance was resumed.

The Liberal and National parties have different geographical voter bases, with the Liberals – the larger party – drawing most of their vote from urban areas, and the Nationals operating almost exclusively in rural and regional areas. They occupy a broadly similar place on the right of the political spectrum. The Liberals and Nationals maintain separate organisational wings and separate parliamentary parties, but co-operate in various ways determined by a mixture of formal agreements and informal conventions. There is a single Coalition frontbench, both in government and in opposition, with each party receiving a proportionate number of positions. By convention, the leader of the Liberal Party serves as the overall leader, serving as prime minister when the Coalition is in government and leader of the opposition when the Coalition is in opposition. The leader of the National Party becomes the deputy prime minister during periods of Coalition government. The two parties co-operate on their federal election campaigns, run joint Senate tickets in most states, and generally avoid running candidates against each other in the House of Representatives.

A merger of the Liberals and Nationals has been suggested on several occasions, but has never become a serious proposition at the national level. The relationship between the two parties varies at state and territory levels. The situation in New South Wales and Victoria broadly mirrors that at the federal level, while in Western Australia the parties are more independent of each other. In the Northern Territory the territorial parties merged in 1974 to form the Country Liberal Party (CLP), and in 2008 the Queensland state-level parties merged, forming the Liberal National Party of Queensland (LNP). LNP and CLP members elected to federal parliament do not form separate parliamentary parties. CLP members may choose to sit in either of the Liberal or National party rooms, while LNP members must sit in party room associated with their seat. In South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, the Nationals have no sitting MPs and little or no organisational presence.