Queensland election results 2017: LNP expected to hold leadership ballot

THE LNP’s party room is expected to hold a leadership ballot as early as this week following the party’s failure to win Government at Saturday’s election and insiders say it’s time for “new blood”.

Queensland Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls and his deputy Deb Frecklington. Picture: AAP Image/Dan Peled

THE LNP’s party room is expected to hold a leadership ballot as early as this week following the party’s failure to win Government at Saturday’s election.

The result was still too close to call last night but MPs were yesterday resigned to a likely three more years on the Oppostion benches.

They told The Courier-Mail they expected a leadership changeover after Tim Nicholls failed in his attempt to take back power from Labor at the poll.

Rather than clawing back some of the primary vote the LNP lost in 2015 – when it was turfed from office after just one term – the party’s primary vote went backwards.

Frontbench MPs Scott Emerson, Ian Walker, Tracy Davis and Tarnya Smith were voted out and fellow frontbencher Andrew Cripps appeared poised to lose his seat with counting continuing today.

LNP deputy leader Deb Frecklington is a frontrunner to replace leader Tim Nicholls. Picture: AAP Image/Josh Woning

Frontrunners to take on the Opposition Leader job include John-Paul Langbroek, Tim Mander, Deb Frecklington and David Crisafulli.

Ms Frecklington and Mr Mander were firming up as favourites, but who would be leader and who would be deputy out of the pair remains unclear.

“There needs to be a change,” one MP told The Courier-Mail.

“We need new blood. If anything, the election result proved that we need to change direction.”

They said they expected Mr Nicholls could resign as leader when a party room meeting is held, likely by the end of the week.

He has not given any indication that was his intent, however.

Mr Nicholls would not be drawn on the issue yesterday, insisting that the day after the election was not the time to talk about leadership.

“I’m not going to talk about any of those sort of things today ... we’re going to celebrate a great campaign that had a positive message,” he said when asked about his future.

Many in the party have blamed former premier Campbell Newman for the loss, with the Labor Party’s campaign focused on reminding voters of the unpopular decisions of his Government, including those made by Mr Nicholls as his treasurer.

Mr Newman, however, said he believed the party failed to highlight the positives from its term in office to counter Labor’s negative campaign.

“The fundamental problem in the LNP campaign is the way they dealt with the 2015 loss,” he said.

“They, through their small-target strategy, allowed the Labor Party to define Tim Nicholls and the LNP in the way they wanted, which was negative. In addition, the failure of the LNP to talk about the real achievements of our time in office meant again that Labor defined it negatively. The result of that was that the scare campaign actually worked for Labor.”

Party elder Rob Borbidge yesterday also moved to pour cold water on suggestions by some in the party that the election result pointed to the failure of the Liberal and National Party merger.

“I don’t think anyone on the conservative side of politics wants to go back to three-cornered contests and the bickering and instability that occurred prior to the merger in Queensland,” he said.”

Originally published as Queensland election results 2017: LNP expected to hold leadership ballot