LNP state convention: Feds challenge state MPs on royalties

The Queensland LNP did not challenge the State Budget with its mining royalties hike. Now the party’s federal MPs are laying down a challenge.

Regional federal Liberal National MPs are set to challenge their state counterparts to support a reversal of Queensland’s controversial mining royalty rise.

Former resources minister Keith Pitt confirmed he had put in an urgent request for the issue to be debated at the LNP’s annual state convention this weekend.

Mr Pitt said the move was not about supporting big coal companies but rather those people who relied on the sector for their jobs – most of whom were in the regions.

He said the State Government’s Budget hike was unacceptable, considering estimates it would take a $15 billion bite out of investment into Queensland’s resources sector due to a slide in business confidence.

Japanese ambassador to Australia Shingo Yamagami said the royalty rise was a “huge shock” for Japanese companies and had put the state’s relationship with business at “great risk”.

One of the main architects of Australia’s free trade deal with Japan, former trade minister Andrew Robb, said the rise sent all the wrong messages to one of our strongest allies.

It is understood new federal Member for Dawson Andrew Willcox is a main backer of Mr Pitt’s motion, with support also from other regional Queensland federal MPs.

The State Opposition did not oppose the Budget in Parliament.

The Carmichael coalmine in Central Queensland

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli, in his Budget reply speech, did not criticise the rise but accused state Treasurer Cameron Dick of deliberately misleading Queenslanders after promising not to introduce any new taxes.

Queensland’s LNP met en masse for the first time since the federal election yesterday for day one of its annual convention, with president Lawrence Springborg using his speech to call for the party to stay on the centre Right.

Mr Springborg, addressing nearly 400 party faithful, 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 – at the hands of the Greens.

“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,” he said.

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

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.

He warned that “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”.