Michael McCormack elected Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister
MICHAEL McCORMACK — a repeat silver medallist — has finally taken the top prize with the former veterans affairs minister elected as the Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister after a surprise challenge from a maverick contender yesterday.
NSW
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A REPEAT silver medallist has finally taken the top prize with former veterans affairs minister Michael McCormack elected as the Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister yesterday.
Mr McCormack, who has failed in previous runs for the leadership and deputy leadership, faced a surprise contest from maverick Nationals MP George Christensen.
But his rise to the nation’s second-highest office has resurfaced past controversies, including his departure from the Wagga Daily Advertiser and published comments railing against “homosexuals and their sordid behaviour”.
Mr McCormack will lead the Nationals after the resignation of Barnaby Joyce, and with leadership rivals David Gillespie and David Littleproud calling off a challenge.
Mr McCormack, who was sworn in yesterday and who also becomes the Infrastructure Minister, praised Mr Joyce as “an outstanding leader”.
He also said “his service to our party and to our nation will never be diminished”.
“We are the party of farmers, that is what we are based on, but we are a party for so many other things,” he said.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the Coalition would endure under Mr McCormack’s leadership, after Mr Christensen over the weekend suggested the partnership be torn up.
However, Mr McCormack’s elevation was met with some concern about his earlier views on gay people — referred to in two columns that he wrote as the editor of the Advertiser.
“Unfortunately gays are here and, if the disease their unnatural acts helped spread doesn’t wipe out humanity, they’re here to stay,” he wrote in 1993.
“How can these people call for rights when they’re responsible for the greatest medical dilemma known to man,” he wrote, referring to AIDS.
Mr McCormack has since retracted those claims and apologised, even voting in favour of allowing same-sex marriage during the postal survey debate last year.
Sydney City councillor Christine Forster, a vocal campaigner for gay marriage, says it was fair that questions are asked, describing the column as “abhorrent”. “If you’re in public life you have to expect to be subjected to that kind of scrutiny,” she said.
Mr McCormack was fired as editor of the Advertiser in 2002, but successfully sued for unfair dismissal. The Wagga Wagga District Court refused to release documents filed as part of those proceedings.
Nationals president Larry Anthony welcomed Mr Joyce’s replacement, and said that Mr McCormack “understands the issues facing the regions and everyday working families”.