‘Broader representation of candidates’ vital to Qld LNP’s poll success, vows Springborg

With female voters leaving in droves and the Greens defeating two MPs in the federal election, Queensland’s LNP needs to avoid “absolutism” if it is to win in 2024, its president warns.

Queensland’s LNP will “ensure a broader representation of candidates” at the next state election, party president Lawrence Springborg has vowed, as members gathered en masse for the first time since the Coalition’s devastating federal poll loss.

Mr Springborg, addressing nearly 400 of the party faithful at its annual convention in Brisbane, said the party’s result in Queensland at the federal election should be seen as a success, considering the state now made up 38 per cent of the Coalition’s federal MPs.

But parts of the population, namely women, had deserted the party. The LNP also lost two MPs – Brisbane’s Trevor Evans and Ryan’s Julian Simmonds – to the Greens.

Recent YouGov polling, conducted exclusively for The Courier-Mail, signalled the Greens were on the electoral march on the state level with its primary vote increasing by 4 per cent compared to data from February.

Queensland LNP president Lawrence Springborg. Picture: Steve Pohlner

“A part of what we’re doing now, going forward towards the next election, (is) working with our parliamentary leader and his team to ensure we have a broader representation of candidates standing for us in our seats that we need to win across Queensland,” Mr Springborg said.

“And that will be a discussion that we’ll be having, and more locally and also collectively over the next few months.”

He confirmed the party, through Opposition Leader David Crisafulli, was aiming to begin the preselection process for the 2024 state election in the next few months in a bid to give candidates a longer run-up.

The Coalition, under Scott Morrison, was decimated at the May federal election, with Queensland becoming the final bastion of the party’s support base.

The LNP’s annual convention is the first large gathering of party members since the election and marks a year since the party underwent a major organisational upheaval.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli. Picture: Liam Kidston

Mr Springborg called for the party to remember it lived on the “centre right” of the political spectrum and was meant to be a broad church, warning “absolutism” would lead to self-righteousness and eventually to electoral failure.

“Absolutism leads to self-righteousness, self-righteousness leads to intolerance, intolerance leads to division and then of course division leads to a lack of political success,” he said.

“And lack of political success, as I know, means just sitting looking at those on the other side of the chamber that are more successful than you, not necessarily because of their own genius, but because of a lack of your own.”

Speaking on the sidelines of the convention, Mr Springborg elaborated that “literal interpretations of platforms, values or philosophies” did not help politically.

“Sometimes people tend to become a little bit stuck one side or the other on it, to me; you know, we have to understand that the community often has a broader view of things,” he said.