Mark Speakman comes to a peace agreement with the Nationals 06:46

The civil war that's been threatening to tear apart the New South Wales Coalition is over, certainly for now. This morning was a meeting of Liberal Party MPs and after negotiations over the past couple of days, they're not splitting with the National Party. The anger stemmed over Wes Fang's attack on the Coalition leader, Mark Speakman, questioning his leadership. And this grew out of Mr Fang's anger that Mr Speakman didn't tell him that he was visiting his hometown of Wagga Wagga. Look, it seems like to me to be a petty dispute.

which turned nasty. Mark Speakman joins us on the program. Thank you for your time, Mark. Hi, Glenn. How are you? Good, mate. Was there the legitimate chance that the coalition would have been dissolved? Oh, look, I think common sense has prevailed. The problem was Wes's behaviour was completely unacceptable. If you're a member of a team, you've got to support the team and not, in a public way, dump on the leader or dump on your coalition partner. I've...

made multiple attempts to try to get that Facebook post taken down straight away and for Wes to apologise or for action to be taken to reprimand or sanction him. It didn't happen and in the end I had to exercise my opposition leader's prerogative and call out bad behaviour. But we've sorted out differences on that. Wes is removed.

We are a strong coalition and I think we're a united force. And now we get on to our real job, which is there to argue for the people of New South Wales, focused on cost of living, health, education, frontline services, infrastructure, all the problems that this government is making worse here in New South Wales and put this skirmish to one side. Which is what's important. But you released a statement late Friday afternoon that you were removing Wes Fang from those shadow assistant positions. Dougald Saunders, the Nationals leader, then released a statement saying that you didn't have...

Now, Dougal Saunders wasn't standing with you at the press conference today, and he has actually said that he stands by his decision. Do you still have a relationship with Dougal Saunders? Oh, absolutely. Look, he's not with me at my press conference today because he's in Dubbo, and it's a bit hard for him to get down to Sydney for a press conference straight after a Liberal Party room meeting. Look, we have had a really good relationship.

In the last 15 months, it's been constructive and collaborative, and I'm confident that will continue. But Westphalian is gone. I've indicated the standards that I require of MPs. I don't want to descend into what we see from this Labor government. We've got Joe Halen with...

Jules to the boys, Yasmin Catley misleading Parliament, Tim Crafterthorpe having found to be breaching public trust, Anthony to Adam only sacked for calling the Police Commissioner a liar after we put pressure on him in question time. I mean, there's a whole litany of poor behaviour by Labor, and I want to make clear to my coalition MPs that I won't tolerate that. But with the way that Dougal reacted last week on Friday, wasn't that undermining your position?

Well, I think the important point is now that we've agreed that Wes is gone. I have called out bad behaviour. I've made it very clear what I expect. Now we put that skirmish to one side and get on to the real reason we've been elected, which is not to have these sorts of skirmishes, but to serve the people of New South Wales. So on real issues. We're in a cost-of-living crisis. Yeah, they're the real issues. We are facing a cost-of-living crisis.

And people aren't concerned about politicians' egos. They're concerned about making their family budgets balance. They're concerned about the deterioration in health and education services and traffic congestion. You name it, there are plenty of problems that we can be talking about, and that's my focus. But, yeah, what Wes thinks about your travel arrangements in the end of the general punter doesn't really matter. But issues, for instance, like renewables, do. Now...

Now, we know there are differences between some Liberal MPs and some Nationals MPs on an issue like renewable energy. What's going to happen, say, six months down the track in the joint party room when one of those policies comes up to debate? Are we going to go through this again on an issue that's actually going to be more important to everyday people?

Well, look, it's important when you're part of a team that you get to a team position and that's what we've largely done in New South Wales. I think we had a pretty good coalition in New South Wales between the Libs and the Nats. It's been the strongest in the country and that's what I hope will continue.

Now, Mr Fang is not penalised financially with this because the assistant shadow positions don't carry extra money, but his position as a deputy whip in the upper house does. Why is he remaining there? Why haven't you removed him from that job? Well, I don't have the power to do that. The whip positions are elected by particular party rooms. It's not a joint party room?

So yes, it's the joint Liberal National Party room that elects him to that. I do have the power to remove him from a shadow ministry or a shadow assistant ministry. I wish that had happened sooner. It didn't, but that's now been cleared up and we move on. Because if he was removed from that position, I think he would lose more than $20,000 a year. Then he'd actually feel like he's done something wrong. In fact, he's not happy today.

Well, look, this is not a matter of whether he's happy or unhappy or pots of money. This is about teamwork and standards. And if you want to be part of a coalition team, you have to go with the team. And if he wants to have all sorts of insults and pejoratives about his Liberal colleagues and me, that's not team play. That's not a standard. It's not how I personally – it doesn't matter what I personally feel about it. I'm not personally affronted.

It's about meeting community expectations that instead of name-calling against each other, we're getting on with focusing on the real issues. We departed from that standard and there are consequences. There's reports today that Dominic Perrottet basically brokered the deal. Is that correct?

No, that's not correct. Certainly, I think Dom made some phone calls, as did a number of senior Liberals. We had to make it clear to our National Party colleagues that this was unacceptable behaviour, Wes had to go, and those phone calls were made. But in the end, Dougal and I had a number of civil but direct conversations that have resolved the issue.

Because both the newspapers, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Telegraph, are running stories that he brokered the deal. It's an exclusive with the Telegraph that's just being published at the moment as well, saying that Dom was at the centre of all this. Well, look, I've seen a clip of Dom being interviewed by one of those papers, and he doesn't characterise it that way. I know that some senior Liberals were very concerned. It might not be a bad thing, mind you.

Oh, look, I welcome the backing. Basically, I had the backing of the party room to call out Wes's behaviour, to confirm that we Liberals have an important role in regional New South Wales, that we're committed to the coalition, but Wes is gone. One last question for you, Mark, and I appreciate you fronting up on what is a challenging day for the coalition. Have you spoken to Wes Fang yet? And when you next have a joint party room meeting, if you haven't spoken to him yet, what are you going to say to him?

Look, I did speak to him before he was dismissed last week to have a go to try to resolve the issue, which was unsuccessful. I haven't had a conversation with him there. But look, my job is to put ruffled feathers aside and to work in the interests of the people of New South Wales. So I want a professional and productive relationship with all my colleagues and indeed with the crossbench and people on the other side. And that's one of the reasons I went to Wagga. We need to start focusing on policy. Thank you, Mr. Speakman. Absolutely. Thanks, Gwyn. The Opposition Leader, Mark Speakman.