The party started by, and led by, Fred Nile looks like it is breaking apart, again. Late on Friday, the federal director and NSW state director Greg Bondar announced to the media he was resigning from the party due to a lack of leadership and a failure “to meet the ethos and values of a truly Christian democratic party”.

Bondar says he is looking to start a coalition of Christian parties in time for the 2019 state and federal elections, claiming there is a “conservative void” needed to counter the “loud minority at the expense of the ‘silent majority’”. It’s the second big split in the Christian Democratic Party, after the Victorian and WA branches split in 2011 to form the Australian Christians.

At the last election, Nile was reportedly blocked from getting his (second) wife, Silvana Nero-Nile, at the top of the New South Wales Senate ticket. She instead ran on the top of the ticket for the CDP in Tasmania (presumably she wouldn’t live away from her husband, the New South Wales parliamentarian).