The federal Liberal and National parties are set to reunite after an acrimonious three-week split.
Liberal leader Sussan Ley and her Nationals counterpart, David Littleproud, have agreed on a deal to restore senior Nationals to the front bench after they were sacked or stood down for breaking solidarity conventions over hate-speech laws.
An announcement confirming the reunion was expected on Sunday, which would see the coalition restored and all former Nationals frontbenchers reinstated to shadow cabinet.
Mr Littleproud offered for all former Nationals shadow ministers to spend two weeks on the back bench, while an offer previously put forward by Ms Ley would have seen them spend six months in the sin bin.
A compromise of six weeks on the back bench, backdated to the mass resignation on January 21, provided an end to the stalemate, Liberal sources confirmed to AAP.
Mr Littleproud and deputy Nationals leader Kevin Hogan will immediately rejoin leadership meetings and shadow cabinet processes.
The Nationals initially proposed keeping the coalition apart for six weeks.
The leaders are also expected to sign an agreement codifying the convention of shadow cabinet solidarity, in which frontbenchers must step down from their roles if they vote against an agreed position of the Liberal-National joint party room.
The written agreement clearly sets out that the joint party room has primacy over the individual National and Liberal party rooms, addressing the contradiction that instigated the split.
Three Nationals frontbenchers – Ross Cadell, Bridget McKenzie and Susan McDonald – voted against Labor’s hate-speech laws, in line with a party decision but in defiance of an agreed shadow cabinet position to vote in favour.
The trio later tendered their resignations to Ms Ley, which she accepted.
But the move triggered a furious response from Mr Littleproud and the Nationals, who resigned from shadow cabinet en masse and caused the coalition collapse.
Asked about the prospect of a reunion on Sunday morning, the Nationals leader said he was not going to pre-empt any announcement but blamed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for the split by rushing the vote on hate-speech laws.
“The reality was none of us were afforded proper time because of the timelines Anthony Albanese put on us to vote on a free speech bill,” he told Nine’s Today program.
Ms Ley gave the Nationals a deadline of Sunday to respond to her offer to revive the coalition before their shadow cabinet positions were provided to Liberal replacements.
The reunification comes during a seismic shift in Australia’s right-wing political landscape, with minor-party One Nation surging past the former coalition partners in some polls.
But tensions between Liberals and Nationals remain elevated.
Liberal MPs were livid at Mr Littleproud’s insistence the two parties could not get back together with Ms Ley at the helm of the senior coalition partner, which they saw as an unwelcome intervention in internal party affairs.
Opposition industrial relations spokesman Tim Wilson would not confirm reports of the coalition reunion but said there had been significant steps based on conversations he’d been having.
“I’m hopeful that there’s a pathway where we can focus back on Labor, and that has to be the objective,” he told Sky News.