Today’s bombshell announcement by Nationals Leader, David Littleproud, that his party is ending its Coalition agreement with the Liberals, adds to the calamities piling up on the Right side of Australian politics.

First, a pathetic excuse for a Coalition election campaign followed by the landslide debacle on May 3, and now this…

The talks between Littleproud and new Liberal Leader, Sussan Ley, may have been courteous and respectful as Littleproud told a press conference on Tuesday Lunchtime, but the outcome has hurled the defeated parties into further disarray – at least in the immediate term.

‘We have got to a position that the National Party will sit alone on a principle basis,’ he said.

‘On the basis of looking forward, not having to look back and to try and actually regain important policy pieces that change the lives of the people we represent.

‘It’s a principle position of making sure that those hard-fought wins are maintained and respected, we continue to look forward.’

Precisely what whose hard-fought wins were, Littleproud didn’t much say. But he did go on to say that it wasn’t the Nats who comprehensively bombed a fortnight ago, it was the Liberals. The Nats held their own in terms of seats, and fended off strong Teal challenges in several of them, just as they have in every federal election since 2013.

But Littleproud’s most telling point was about the state of the Liberal party. ‘I think that we can and will work together when the Liberals decide what they want to be and many of the capital cities that they want to be able to prosecute their case in. My job is not to be a drag on their boat.’

You can’t deny that.

Reporting breathlessly claims the coalition has been in place for 80 years, ever since the formation of the Liberals. It hasn’t. It was broken after the 1972 election loss for much the same reasons as Littleproud gave today and, notoriously, John Howard broke it at the height of 1987’s Joh for Canberra push.

Littleproud certainly is right about the Liberals needing to work out who they are and what they stand for. What’s alarming for those of conservative disposition is that, for decades, the innate conservatism of the Nats have, time and again, applied an effective brake to the moderate frolics and excesses of the Liberals.

And, given the Liberals give absolute policy sovereignty to their MPs, and those MPs jealously – and arrogantly – guard it despite having a talent pool as shallow as a muddy puddle, the Liberal party room currently dominated by moderates will likely go off with the fairies, pursuing Labor-lite economic and social agendas, and of course running away from key questions like dumping Net Zero and admitting nuclear to Australia’s energy mix.

In the short term, the only real winners are Labor and Anthony Albanese. He may well find the more pragmatic Nationals alone easier to deal with on legislation in the Senate, especially if he can bypass both the Liberals and the Greens. Then, too, Labor can sit and watch conservatism eat its young, at least for the time being.

Also in the short term, this is a disaster for the centre-right and a boon to Labor. In the long term, however, the Liberals do need to take that very long and hard look at themselves, provided the process of reflection and rejuvenation is not hijacked and monopolised by those shouty moderate MPs in the isolation of their Canberra party room.

As a journeywoman MP who’s risen without a trace and made little mark as a minister, Sussan Ley is already up against it, but she has a choice. She can choose to accept the Nationals’ decision today has made her life so much harder as an Opposition leader, but made it much easier for to entrench the Wets’ dominance of federal Liberal policy. Or she can show real political courage, and ensure the Liberal party is once again fit for purpose as the natural party of government, with a strong economically liberal and socially conservative leadership and philosophy, by a rigorous root-and-branch review of everything, from policy to the organisation to the quality of its MPs and candidates – and rotting out the cancer of factionalism and personality cults.

Perversely, Littleproud’s given Ley a great opportunity to be a great leader. Will she take it?