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Australia's Liberal-National Coalition, the country's main opposition, has split after a row over hate speech reforms, casting the future of Liberal leader Sussan Ley into doubt.
The centre-right Coalition, which has been on rocky ground since a resounding election defeat last year, had been divided over how to respond to reforms moved by the government after a terror attack targeting a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach killed 15 people.
The Nationals ultimately refused to follow the shadow cabinet decision on the laws.
"Our party room has made it clear that we cannot be part of a shadow ministry under Sussan Ley," leader David Littleproud told reporters in Brisbane on Thursday.
Announcing the split on a national day of mourning for those killed in the shooting on 14 December, Littleproud said the Coalition "was made untenable".
He did not rule out a return to the Coalition, refusing to "speculate", but said it was "probably a good thing" if Australia's two main conservative parties spent "some time apart".
It is the second time in less than a year that the Nationals have pulled out of the Coalition, with a brief split - largely over climate and energy policy - in May last year resolved within a week.
Ley is yet to comment on the split. She released a statement on Thursday to mark the national day of mourning, saying "my responsibility as leader of the opposition and leader of the Liberal party is to Australians in mourning".
Though both parties in the Coalition voted against legislation tightening gun controls, the Liberals had sided with the Labor government on Tuesday to pass hate speech reforms introduced after the Bondi Beach attack.
But their Nationals colleagues abstained from the vote in the lower house and voted against the measure in the senate, despite a shadow cabinet agreement, citing concerns that the legislation had been rushed and posed a threat to free speech.
On Wednesday three Nationals frontbenchers offered their resignations, which Ley accepted despite a warning from Littleproud that if she accepted them the rest of the Nationals front bench would follow. The rest of the shadow cabinet duly resigned.
"This process was wasn't all Sussan Ley's fault," Littleproud said. "Prime Minister Anthony Albanese put her in this process. But it has been mismanaged by Sussan Ley."
Ley had already been struggling to assert her authority over the Coalition after being elected the Liberal party's first female leader after last year's bruising election defeat.
Some political analysts and observers had predicted she would be ousted by the end of last year and Thursday's events have reignited those conversations.
The Coalition, in its current form, dates back to the 1940s, and before the brief break-up last year, had not parted way since 1987.
The Nationals mainly represent regional communities and often lean more conservative than the Liberals.
