‘Put some skin in the game’: Matt Canavan vying National leadership as Coalition civil war implodes
The Liberals and the Nationals are both preparing for heating leadership battles amid a civil war between the two Coalition partners over the defection of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
NSW
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Outspoken conservative senator Matt Canavan will fight to lead the National Party as both arms of the Coalition head into heated leadership challenges.
The Nationals have faced a tumultuous week with Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price defecting to the Liberals on Thursday with a likely chance of running for deputy leadership under Angus Taylor.
Ms Nampijinpa Price’s bombshell decision has also muddied the already nasty leadership battle between current Liberal deputy Sussan Ley and treasury spokesman Mr Taylor.
The internal fractures inside both parties are compounded by a growing civil war between Nationals and the Liberals with Nationals MP Bridget McKenzie accusing the Coalition partner of trying to recruit Ms Nampijinpa Price well before polling day.
Mr Taylor’s supporters says there is no evidence the plan was underway before May 3.
Mr Canavan is expected to throw his hat in the ring on Monday against Nationals leader David Littleproud.
He will likely join Queensland MP Colin Boyce whom multiple Nationals sources named as a potential leadership challenger who was calling around to win support.
The challenge comes as both Ms Ley and Mr Taylor formally announced their intention to become Liberal leader on Friday, ahead of the Tuesday party room meeting, while immigration spokesman Dan Tehan ruled out a leadership tilt.
Multiple Liberals felt Mr Taylor’s key role in poaching Ms Nampijinpa Price, alongside former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, had rubbed his own supporters the wrong way but others maintain the Hume MP has the numbers to win.
One source said Mr Taylor’s decision sent a message that he considered no existing woman in the Liberal Party good enough to be his deputy.
Another Liberal source said the possibility of Ms Price as Mr Taylor’s deputy leader was an “affront” to more senior members of the senate.
“This is a very rude affront to Michaelia Cash and Anne Ruston – the leader and deputy leader of the opposition in the Senate – Angus is now saying this person is going to be my deputy and she’s now effectively senior to those two,” they said.
Nationals MPs said they understood the Country Liberal Party Senator’s decision to sit with the Liberals but condemned her approach of throwing the grenade days after using Nationals funds to campaign.
A second MP said Ms Price had ambitions to be prime minister and she should have stood for Solomon, rather than benefiting from their support.
A third source added that she has previously been informally offered lower house seats including from the Nationals that she did not pursue.
The seats were not safe contests.
“She didn’t back herself and her popularity and put her name on the ballot but she did take our safe seat and handed it to the Liberals.”
“Put some skin in the game.”
The leadership contest on both sides of the Coalition can be boiled down to a battle between conservatives and moderates.
In the Liberals, Ms Ley is largely factionless and a moderate choice favoured by those reeling from the party’s wipe-out in metropolitan seats, with young people and with women.
Mr Taylor is from the National Right faction and will be aligned with Ms Nampijinpa Price who is among the most conservative voices in the Coalition.
It’s a similar story in the Nationals where conservative Matt Canavan is tying his leadership pitch to calls to scrap net zero goals, something Mr Boyce has also called for in the aftermath of the election.
Mr Littleproud is considered the more progressive choice with the Maranoa MP last year shutting down anti-abortion debate and reaffirming women’s right to choose.
His detractors point to the party’s failure to win back Calare after Andrew Gee quit the Nationals over the Voice referendum and the loss of deputy leader Perin Davey in the Senate after she was relegated to the third spot on the joint Coalition senate ticket.
The party came close in the Victorian seat of Bendigo but Labor ultimately retained it.
But a Nationals MP said Mr Littleproud had a “long life left in him” and turfing him would be “hard to justify” because their lower house vote held while a second said he should not be expected to wear those losses.
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Originally published as ‘Put some skin in the game’: Matt Canavan vying National leadership as Coalition civil war implodes
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