David Littleproud ‘relaxed’ over Nationals leadership noise

David Littleproud says he is ‘relaxed’ about his position as Nationals leader after party veteran Barnaby Joyce revealed he would vote for Michael McCormack in a leadership contest.

David Littleproud at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

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David Littleproud says he is ­“relaxed” about his position as ­Nationals leader after party veteran Barnaby Joyce revealed he would vote for Michael McCormack if there was a contest for the leadership.

Mr McCormack is not ruling out a future tilt at the leadership, although both he and Mr Joyce ­denied they were agitating to remove Mr Littleproud from the job.

The Nationals leadership came into focus in the second sitting day of the 48th parliament after The Australian revealed the two former deputy prime ministers had joined forces to campaign against net zero after years of being political enemies.

Mr Littleproud said leadership was “always a gift of the party” and he was “not arrogant” about his position.

He said it was counter-­productive to worry about whether there was plotting against his leadership.

“If you do that, if you’re focused on yourself … then you’re not focused on what you’re trying to achieve,” Mr Littleproud told Sky News.

“And what I want to achieve is building on that legacy that I’ve been able to build up with my ­partyroom in leading them because it hasn’t been my individual decision.”

Under pressure after Mr McCormack revealed he would vote for Mr Joyce’s private member’s bill to repeal net zero, Mr Littleproud gave his strongest signal yet that the Nationals would formally oppose the 2050 target, which he labelled “impossible”.

In The Australian on Monday, Mr Joyce said he canvassed support for Mr McCormack in a post-election spill of the leadership.

He said he would “happily back Michael for leader” but he was not agitating for a leadership change, despite admitting his relationship with Mr Littleproud had “broken down”.

“Was I making calls on Michael’s behalf? Yes, I was,” he said.

“If someone said ‘Would you back Michael for leader? Yeah, I would. But am I going to move to create a change? No, I’m not.”

Mr McCormack and Mr Joyce were both scathing over Mr Littleproud’s actions after the May election, including dumping them to the backbench and splitting the Coalition.

Several Nationals MPs dismissed claims there were broad concerns about Mr Littleproud’s leadership, with one describing the intervention as the actions of ­“bitter ex-leaders”.

MPs were surprised Mr McCormack had joined forces with Mr Joyce in backing a private member’s bill on net zero, given his previous support for the policy.

Nationals senator Matt Canavan, who challenged for the party’s leadership after the election, said Mr Littleproud was doing an excellent job.

“I think David has done an excellent job since the election, I think he stood up for the partyroom,” he said. “This for me has ­always been about the (climate and energy) policy, not the personality.”

Wide Bay MP Llew O’Brien – a critic of Mr McCormack when he was deputy prime minister – said he would back any leader who ­opposed net zero.

Mr O’Brien, who quit the Nat­ionals partyroom in 2020 after moving a spill against Mr McCormack’s leadership, said the Riverina MP did a good job as deputy prime minister.

“This issue of net zero is serious enough that I would consider any options,” he said.

“If somebody was articulating to me that they had a desire to get out of net zero, and I saw that they were going to have a pragmatic Australian-first approach, I would consider it.

“Michael or any candidate who put themselves forward on that.

“Michael is a thoroughly decent human being, and was a good leader. I had some specific issues … but they are long in the past.”

Flynn MP Colin Boyce signalled he was unhappy with the performance of Mr Littleproud, arguing that the intervention from the two former leaders was because some MPs were being “ostracised”.

But he said he did not think there was a mood in the partyroom for changing the leader.