Cyclone sweeps through LNP state conference

People were expecting the winds of change to sweep through the LNP state conference, but it’s actually been hit by a category-five cyclone, writes Jessica Marszalek.

While people were expecting the winds of change to sweep through this weekend’s LNP state conference, it was actually a category-five cyclone that hit the Brisbane Convention Centre on Friday.

Such was the feeling, not only from the grassroots but from all sectors of the party that suffered a humiliating loss at last year’s state election, the President’s Committee was razed to the ground.

It had become a symbol of the power wielded by the few, who had made grave errors in handling last year’s poll, and toppling it is meant to return some of that power to the grassroots.

Leader of the LNP David Crisafulli at the 2021 Annual Convention at Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. Picture: Tara Croser.

The parliamentary wing certainly are not without blame for their disastrous result, in which they lost seats, but the spectre of “backroom bully boys” – as then leader Deb Frecklington termed them – leaking against her just weeks before that election was incredible. That a group of LNP powerbrokers then were photographed partying on a luxury boat owned by political foe Clive Palmer on election night as the party’s own fortunes sank was something else.

A series of Sunday Mail articles by Peter Gleeson earlier this year shocked grassroots members – not for what they said, but who was speaking. If respected luminaries like party founder Lawrence Springborg, Rob Borbidge and Adrian Schrinner felt they needed to speak to the media to be heard, what did that say about the listening skills of the party leadership?

Their answer came quickly, when acting president Cynthia Hardy shot off an incredible email to members eviscerating the “cowards” and their “appalling behaviour” in speaking out. It did not go down well. On Saturday, the party’s leadership team will be elected and it seems a foregone conclusion that Springborg will take the helm. Leader David Crisafulli seems well on his way to achieving the party reforms he detailed in May.