LNP turns to Laurence Springborg to stop revolt

Queensland’s Liberal National Party is set to turn to father figure Lawrence Springborg to quell ­bitter infighting that threatens to ­engulf the division and damage the Morrison government’s re-election prospects.

Senator Amanda Stoker. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Queensland’s Liberal National Party is set to turn to father figure Lawrence Springborg to quell ­bitter infighting that threatens to ­engulf the division and damage the Morrison government’s re-election prospects.

Mr Springborg, 53, an architect of the conservative merger to create the LNP in 2008, had three stints as state opposition leader and served as a senior government minister under Campbell Newman. He has been coaxed out of retirement from state politics to end a widening revolt against the organisational wing.

The rebels expect to secure support across the party to install Mr Springborg as LNP president at the party’s state convention in July, rolling an entrenched group that has held sway for the past 14 years in which “fortress Queensland” became an electoral rock for the federal Coalition.

The LNP won 23 of the state’s then 30 federal seats at the 2019 federal election, underpinning Mr Morrison’s victory, and Queensland looms large in all calculations for the poll due by late May next year.

Yet with the exception of Mr Newman’s lone term of office from 2012, Labor has dominated at the state level under premiers Peter Beattie, Anna Bligh and now Annastacia Palaszczuk, who carried a third election on the trot last October.

Such is Mr Springborg’s standing in the LNP he may be unopposed to take over the powerful president’s position from incumbent Cynthia Hardy.

The Prime Minister will be hoping Mr Springborg can calm factional tensions that have aligned arch conservatives in the so-called Christian Right with Brisbane-based Defence Minister Peter Dutton and controversial lobbyist and backroom player Santo Santoro to oust the “cabal” of LNP grandees and establishment figures backing Ms Hardy.

An early test of the rebels’ numbers will be a fiercely-contested preselection battle next month for top spot on the LNP Senate ticket between newly-promoted Assistant Women’s Minister Amanda Stoker and campaign guru James McGrath, one of the plotters who brought down Tony Abbott as prime minister in 2015 in favour of Malcolm Turnbull.

Lawrence Springborg. Picture: Liana Turner

Senator Stoker, 38, is said to be backed by the Christian Right group led by businessman David Goodwin, who was suspended from the party in May 2019 over allegations he sought to recruit right-wing extremists. Denying this, Mr Goodwin launched defamation action in the Brisbane ­District Court against former LNP president Dave Hutchison, outgoing state director Michael O’Dwyer, former state executive committee member and lobbyist Malcolm Cole and LNP state secretary Angela Awabdy. A reported offer to retract the allegations, apologise to Mr Goodwin and pay him in $11,000 in costs has not yet led to settlement of the case.

This is just one of a number of pressure points that has fired factional infighting and growing grassroots anger at the way party headquarters wields power. Mr Hutchinson was forced to quit as president last July after being ­implicated in a plot to dump then state opposition leader Deb Frecklington, with Ms Hardy wheeled in to replace him as ­acting president.

The rebels, some of whom ­describe themselves as political “outsiders”, want to overturn the status quo that has prevailed at the top of the party since the Queensland Liberal and National parties merged at the state and federal levels to create the LNP in 2008. The structure of the organisation would be overhauled to make it more transparent and ­accountable, they say.

Securing the spot atop the Senate ticket guarantees the candidate’s re-election, spicing up the contest between Senator McGrath, 46, and Senator Stoker ahead of a meeting of the LNP’s state council next month to ­decide the preselection.

Senator Stoker’ssupporters have seized on her purported backing by the Christian Right — which she plays down, saying she draws her support from all sections — to warn it would fire up the faction to seize control of the party and marginalise it.

Preselection candidates are banned under party rules from speaking publicly about the contest. Asked if the party needed to be reformed, Senator Stoker said: “I think that goes to internal party matters and I have to be pretty careful.

“I do think it is really important that membership be open to all and I think it’s important that members get heard … I think if you get those two things right then everything else falls into place.

Until now, Mr Springborg has resisted overtures to re-engage with the party hierarchy after he was spectacularly dumped as an LNP trustee at the height of the row between Ms Frecklington and Mr Hutchinson over the leaking of damaging party polling ahead of the state election. It is understood that Mr Springborg sought assurances that his return to the fold as president would have “broad support” from the both the leadership and rank and file of the party.

He will continue as mayor of his home town of Goondiwindi in southwest Queensland. “Lawrence has the numbers and has the backing of powerbrokers wanting to clear out headquarters, as well as the grassroots membership,’’ one current state executive member told The Weekend Australian.

“He is seen as the peacemaker, he was integral in the merger of the Liberal and National parties back in 2008 and is again the hope of bringing everyone back together.’’

Mr Springborg on Friday confirmed he was considering running for the LNP presidency. “I am giving it a degree of consideration,’’ he said.