Heat on Barnaby Joyce as Coalition reshuffles
Michael McCormack says Barnaby Joyce is a reason the Coalition lost government as the new opposition meets to decide how to win the next election.
Former Nationals leader Michael McCormack says Barnaby Joyce is a reason the Coalition lost government as the new opposition meets in Canberra to decide how it will shape itself into a force that can win the next election.
The Nationals partyroom will meet on Monday to decide whether they will be led by Mr Joyce, David Littleproud or Darren Chester, with party MPs telling The Australian the numbers were close between Mr Joyce and Mr Littleproud.
Mallee MP Anne Webster will run for the role of Nationals deputy leader, saying the party needs to improve its messaging towards women and regional people who wanted to take action on climate change.
The Liberal partyroom, meanwhile, is expected to endorse Peter Dutton as its party leader and NSW MP Sussan Ley as deputy unopposed.
Mr Joyce’s close supporters were on Sunday confident of the numbers, while a supporter of Mr Littleproud said a change of leadership was “in the bag”.
Most MPs said the contest would be close.
“There is not much in it,” one MP said.
“It will come down to the new entrants in the room.”
Ahead of Monday’s vote, Mr McCormack told The Australian he would not be running as leader and would decide his vote during the partyroom meeting.
He said “some of the things (Mr Joyce) did and said certainly didn’t help us” win the election.
“The text messages about the liar and the hypocrite, not reining George (Christensen) in when he should have, not reining Matt (Canavan) in when perhaps he should have,” he said.
“None of those things helped and it actually gave those people who were seeking to park their vote somewhere other than the Liberals the excuse to do so.”
Mr McCormack ridiculed Mr Joyce’s supporters for claiming there should be no leadership change because the Nationals held on to all of their seats.
“They conveniently forget that actually happened in 2019,” he said, after which Mr Joyce successfully challenged Mr McCormack for the Nationals leadership.
“Not only did we retain all of our seats ... we also gained a significant majority in some of those seats that were marginal in the election before under Barnaby,” Mr McCormack said.
The new opposition leader is expected to make drastic changes to the frontbench, given the number of ministers who retired or lost their seats in the election, including Greg Hunt, Josh Frydenberg and Ken Wyatt.
Hume MP Angus Taylor is a potential Treasury spokesman, while Marise Payne is likely to sit on the backbench.
Bridget Archer and Andrew Bragg are among moderate Liberal MPs set to be thrust into more senior positions under the ministerial reshuffle.
Conservatives Andrew Hastie, the former assistant minister for defence, and James Paterson, who will vacate the chair of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, were touted as two MPs likely to receive significant promotions.
Liberal MPs, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they expected former defence minister Mr Dutton, who was holding his cards close to his chest, would confirm his portfolio appointments later this week, once Anthony Albanese had announced Labor’s ministry on Tuesday.
One Liberal MP suggested both Tony Pasin and Melissa McIntosh could also be considered bolters for promotions, given that the latter managed to defy a national swing towards Labor by increasing her margin in her seat of Lindsay, in Sydney’s west.
They also suggested that former defence industry minister Melissa Price was likely to benefit from the need for women in cabinet positions, saying in normal circumstances her tenure and underperformance in parliament would have been considered sufficient reasons for her to be moved on.
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