Exclusive interview: Dan Cregan rejects fears Speaker role will distract him from electorate duties

New Speaker and Liberal defector Dan Cregan says he can’t rule out a party comeback in an exclusive Advertiser interview, as he issues a plea for ex-teammates to play fair.

Newly installed Speaker Dan Cregan has deployed a bargaining chip for his Adelaide Hills infrastructure pitch by leaving open the prospect of rejoining the Liberal Party he spectacularly quit a week ago.

In an interview with The Advertiser, the now-independent Kavel MP pleaded for the Liberal Party and the state government not to “seek to destroy me personally” because of his defection.

Speaking at Mt Barker’s football and cricket clubrooms, Mr Cregan responded to questions about whether he would seek to rejoin the Liberals, even before next March’s election, by pointedly declaring he would not “rule anything in or out”.

But when repeatedly asked to rule out any collusion with the Labor Party at any time ahead of the Tuesday midnight coup to make him Speaker, Mr Cregan referred only to his previously issued statement that “there was no deal with any major party, Labor or Liberal”.

The Advertiser presented Mr Cregan with a tin of baked beans, which he on Wednesday said he would accept as payment for the $352,056-a-year Speaker’s job if that was the wage, and he jocularly posed with the vegies.

Kavel MP and Speaker Dan Cregan poses with baked beans at Mt Barker’s Summit Sport and Recreation Park. Picture: Keryn Stevens

The extraordinary putsch to oust his fellow Hills MP and Liberal Speaker Josh Teague came just four days after The Advertiser revealed Mr Cregan would contest his blue-ribbon seat, centred on Mt Barker, as an independent.

Mr Cregan responded to criticism of a money and power grab in seizing the Speakership by recommitting to a Westminster-style independent speakership, in which the incumbent is nonpartisan and does not sit in a party room.

Asked if this commitment to the Speaker’s independence meant, if he was re-elected, that there was no chance of him rejoining the Liberals, Cregan left the prospect open.

“I’m happy to sit down after the election and buy the Premier a pizza and have a conversation with him about the needs of my community. I’ll always I put the needs of my community before the needs of a major political party,” Mr Cregan said.

Many Liberals have been embittered by Mr Cregan’s defection, complicating any potential return unless for electoral necessity.

Local member Frances Bedford takes a selfie at Premier Steven Marshall’s press conference at Modbury Hospital this week. Picture: Brenton Edwards

His olive branch to the Liberals likely will result in further accusations of flip-flopping, given he in September overturned his July announcement that he would quit politics at the next election, then on October 8 declared he would become an independent, before becoming Speaker on Tuesday night.

When urging the Liberals not to destroy him, Mr Cregan said he was “seeking to do the very best I can for my community in view of what I see as a substantial breach of trust with my community” – the dumping in January last year of the $7bn GlobeLink plan that would have diverted rail and road freight away from the Hills.

Mr Cregan said this breach of trust could be resolved only by “having a whole-of-government approach, every portfolio approach, to building a new city in the hills and addressing the massive population growth issues we’ve got”.

“Whatever the government and the Liberal Party might say, I’ll be looking to maintain a positive working relationship with everybody in parliament and with everybody outside parliament,” he said.

“ … If the government goes low, I’ll go high – I will not respond, I’ll go high.”

Speaker Dan Cregan poses with baked beans, which he said he would accept as payment for the parliamentary umpire’s job. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Mr Cregan flatly rejected criticism that he would torpedo his justification for becoming an independent by being a less effective local member as Speaker, citing the record of fellow Liberal defector Bob Such and former Liberal colleagues Mr Teague and his predecessor Vincent Tarzia.

“I think the evidence weighs heavily against that point. The late (Fisher MP) Bob Such was arguably one of the most effective local members that state’s ever seen and he was the Speaker (from 2005-06),” he said.

“(Heysen MP) Josh Teague is an effective local member and was the Speaker. (Hartley MP) Vincent Tarzia defeated Nick Xenophon – he’s arguably one of the state’s most effective local members and was the Speaker.

“It’s an argument that just falls to pieces on any kind of proper analysis.”