Des Houghton: LNP dissidents should be booted out

THE three LNP dissidents who dumped on Bowman MP Andrew Laming have been suspended and now face expulsion from the party. DES HOUGHTON says they should be punted from the party.

• Laming labelled ‘electoral liability’

THE three LNP dissidents who dumped on their sitting Bowman MHR, Andrew Laming, have been suspended and now face expulsion from the party.

I do hope they are booted out.

Paul Field, Shaun Edwards and Suzi Foster chose to muddy the waters on the very day of Malcolm Turnbull’s Senate tax triumph.

Delivering tax cuts to working families was perhaps the Turnbull government’s greatest achievement so far.

The vote embarrassed Bungling Bill Shorten and may be the impetus the LNP needs to win the next election.

Enter the Bowman rebels with exquisite bad timing to steal the oxygen from the story of the day, and perhaps the story of the year.

Liberal Member for Bowman Andrew Laming. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

The Bowman rebels didn’t help the LNP one bit.

They seek to have another member, Paul Branagan, preselected ahead of Laming.

I have no ill-will against Branagan but I do know he got less than 30 per cent of the vote when he contested the last local government elections.

And at the last federal election Laming increased his vote and holds Bowman with a margin of more than seven per cent.

I believe the dissent against Laming is part of the lingering resentment by some members who resent the fact he openly backed Turnbull in the leadership battle with Tony Abbott.

Laming has more than demonstrated his conservative values.

He and his camp helped establish the school chaplaincy program. Laming attacked AGL head-on for closing Liddell coal-fired power station. The Laming camp also drew up the Coalition’s policy on drug-testing of welfare recipients.

The annual general meeting of the Bowman divisional council will be held in the electorate on Saturday.

I’m tipping that by sundown the rebel trio wont have any executive role at all. I’m on safe ground here because I understand the only nominations received by deadline for executive elections are from Laming supporters. I see little likelihood of an upset.

I understand the rebels now face the LNP presidents committee who will determine whether they should be expelled.

“They have done their dash within the party,” said a senior member ominously.