Strong Coalition vital: Joyce

Mr Joyce spoke to media today following yesterday’s Liberal leadership vote which saw Malcolm Turnbull topple Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

As the drama unfolded rapidly in Canberra, the National party met late yesterday afternoon to discuss their position.

Having backed Mr Abbott due to fears of being perceived as being no different to Labor in the eyes of regional voters, for removing a first term Prime Minister, the party will now meet again today to consider their position and options under Mr Turnbull.

Mr Joyce congratulated Mr Turnbull on being elected Liberal leader and said now the respective leaders would now have to negotiate a new Coalition agreement.

The Agriculture Minister stressed that issues concerning people in the regional areas and issues with economic growth in the regions, had to be dealt with in that agreement.

“Australia wants good government and good government starts with a strong Coalition agreement,” he said.

Mr Joyce said he believed Nationals leader Warren Truss would be “right up to the task” on the Coalition agreement negotiations “to make sure we get the best deal possible for regional Australia”.

He resisted offering a message for the new Liberal leader and incoming Prime Minister on climate change policy – an area where Mr Turnbull clashed heavily with the Nationals when he was voted out as Liberal leader by Mr Abbott in 2009.

Mr Joyce said he’d heard Mr Turnbull speak this morning where he said there would be no change to current climate change policy.

Asked whether he thought it was a mistake to remove a first-term Prime Minister with a party-room vote, like Labor did to Mr Rudd, he said “I don’t think it’s preferable”.

“I believe that elections should be the determinant and the people of their own volition should decide,” he said.

Today, Liberal MPs said they believed Mr Turnbull had changed since he was last Liberal leader and expected most policies to remain the same but some would also change, through the party’s processes.

But it’s also understood some National party members were perturbed by Mr Turnbull’s failure to mention the junior Coalition partner when he spoke to media late last night, shortly after winning the Liberal leadership vote 54-44.

“The culture of our leadership is going to be one that is thoroughly consultative; a thoroughly traditional Cabinet government that ensures that we make decisions in a collaborative manner,” Mr Turnbull told media.

“The Prime Minister of Australia is not a president; the Prime Minister is the first among equals.”

Mr Turnbull said the climate change policy that Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop prepared was “one that I supported as a minister in the Abbott government and it's one that I support today”.

“Policies are reviewed and adapted all the time - but the climate policy is one that I think has been very well designed,” he said.

“That was a very, very good piece of work.”

Yesterday, Mr Truss reiterated the series of statements made by his party when the Liberal leadership was under scrutiny in February this year and the National party gathered for a strategic planning meeting in Wodonga, Victoria.

“The Coalition agreement is actually between Tony Abbott and me and that's an agreement that we submitted to the Governor-General so that she was able to commission the government,” he said at the time.

Mr Truss was also quick to try and shift focus to the Nationals’ work on rural issues, including for agriculture, saying he led a “united team” that wanted to deliver good policies for regional Australians.

“Now, we've got ministers who are involved in some of the key areas of the economy and service provision in this country and we have, therefore, a vital role to play and we're determined to do that in a constructive way and we want to get on with that job,” he said then.

Mr Truss said the party’s agenda at that meeting included health care, improved education for country residents, delivering the government’s $50 billion infrastructure commitment for roads and railway lines, regional communications.

“We all know the regions contribute enormously to our nation's wealth and when the regions are strong so is our country,” he said.

“And so for that reason it is vitally important that we have strong and healthy and vibrant regions to guarantee that our country will get through the difficulties, the economic difficulties that are confronting the globe at the present time and indeed problems with commodity prices et cetera that are affecting our own profitability as a nation.”

In February, Victorian Nationals MP Darren Chester said the Coalition came “dangerously close” to being “just like Labor” during the leadership spill motion on Mr Abbott which was defeated at a Liberal party room meeting.

“I don’t think the Australian people actually voted for us with a great deal of love and affection,” he said of the 2013 federal election result.

“They voted for us because they hated Labor’s chaos and dysfunction.

“So we need to keep that in mind.

“We’re on probation with the Australian people and if we go down that path of fighting among ourselves like the Labor party did, we will be very harshly judged at the next election.”