Deb Frecklington could face leadership challenge

Deb Frecklington has vowed to continue as leader of the LNP but the decision is not hers alone and party protocol suggests there will be a leadership spill.

Deb Frecklington at the LNP’s post-election reception. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

Deb Frecklington has vowed to continue as leader of the Liberal National Party but the decision is not hers alone and party protocol suggests there will be a leadership spill.

There have already been quiet calls from some MPs for Ms Frecklington, who has led the party since Tim Nicholls lost the 2017 race, to be replaced.

Other MPs and party figures say they would rather Ms Frecklington remain leader and be given a chance to build on the work she had done to boost her profile.

It is convention within the LNP that after a loss, the partyroom will call a spill for the leadership, but the exact makeup of the partyroom is still to be determined as counting continues and no meeting has been called.

Within three weeks of Mr Nicholls’ loss in 2017, Ms Frecklington was elected as the party’s first female leader ahead of John Paul Langbroek and Mark Robinson.

Ms Frecklington, who was ­described as “shattered” by the loss on Saturday, went to ground on Sunday, and the party did not put forward any of its leadership team to speak to the media.

MPs were busy calling each other to discuss a way forward for the party that by the next election would have spent nine straight years in opposition.

One LNP MP said that in conversations with colleagues on Sunday morning, the word “untenable” had been used more than a dozen times to describe Ms Frecklington’s leadership.

“I would like Deb to come to that view,” the MP said. “That would be better for everybody. Where to from there, I don’t know.”

Another MP described Ms Frecklington as a “competent leader” who still had a lot of support within the partyroom.

A former LNP MP said the election loss should not spell the end for Ms Frecklington. “It wasn’t a disaster,” the source said.

“Normally there’s a change of leadership if, for example, you lose 10 members in your team. But most of those people sitting there now have supported Deb. And who are we going to put up?”

The name most prominently mentioned by MPs is David Crisafulli, who strengthened his buffer in the Gold Coast seat of Broadwater. He would not comment on Sunday.

The former MP said there would be some advantage in ­allowing Ms Frecklington to continue as leader.

“Deb is young enough to stay there for fours years and chip away,” the source said. “If you look at what Labor has done over the years a lot better than us is they’ve been resilient to run in positions with the same candidate.

“They’d have a candidate run two or three times before they ­actually win a seat.”

Former premier Campbell Newman said the LNP’s loss was “predictable” and criticised the party for failing to pick a different leader.

Some members of the LNP executive, including former president Dave Hutchinson, were outed in June for conspiring to ­replace Ms Frecklington as leader.

She stared down the challenge, accusing the “backroom bullies” of trying to destabilise her leadership.

“Head office has a lot to answer for undermining Deb and they’re the ones who we should be paying out on,” an LNP source said.

Ms Frecklington’s decision not to phone Ms Palaszczuk on Saturday night to concede defeat, and to make her concession speech while the Premier was addressing her own supporters, has riled some within the LNP and Labor.

A source close to Ms Frecklington said she was unaware of the Premier’s speech when she walked in to the LNP’s post-election function in South Brisbane.

In her speech, Ms Frecklington congratulated Ms Palaszczuk.

“I may not agree with the Premier a lot of the time, but I ­respect her as an opponent and as the leader of our state,” she said.

Ms Palaszczuk said the Opposition Leader had called her on Sunday morning to congratulate her.