Libs leadership turmoil sparked PUP infighting

THE threat the PUP would abstain from voting in the Senate until the Liberal leadership was settled led to party infighting.

Glenn Lazarus discusses his resignation from the PUP outside his Brisbane home yesterday Picture: Peter Wallis

CLIVE Palmer’s threat this month that he and his two senators would abstain from voting until the Liberal leadership was resolved sparked the in-fighting that led to Glenn Lazarus’s resignation from the Palmer United Party.

The former rugby league star and current Queensland senator, elected in 2013, announced his resig­nation from the PUP on Facebook early yesterday after his wife, Tess, was sacked as a party adviser hours earlier.

The Abbott government hopes the move may unblock the Senate.

Mr Palmer said his former Senate leader had “spat the dummy’’ over his wife’s dismissal and, having been elected on the PUP brand, should now quit the Senate — creating a casual vacancy to be filled by a party nominee.

But Senator Lazarus refuses to resign from the upper house, ­accusing Mr Palmer of not consulting his parliamentary team, including Jacqui Lambie who quit in November, and of abusing his wife.

Tensions erupted on March 2 when Senator Lazarus learnt of Mr Palmer’s announcement that he, Senator Lazarus and West Australian PUP senator Zhenya “Dio” Wang would not vote on legislation amid speculation over Tony Abbott’s leadership.

Senator Lazarus had not been consulted and the announcement sparked an exchange between Mr Palmer and Tess Sanders Laza­rus in which she alleges he yelled and swore at her, and a later exchange between the senator and the PUP leader. Senator Wang is also understood to have been upset by the announcement.

Yesterday Senator Lazarus said he had considered resigning for “quite a while’’ and he had a “different view of teamwork” to PUP.

Before his resignation, Senator Lazarus had lunch with his former Brisbane Broncos coach, Wayne Bennett, “to get a fresh set of eyes on the whole situation”. “This has been a very arduous and long-drawn-out, very difficult decision and I just needed to talk to someone that wasn’t involved with this side of my life,” he told ABC TV.

Senator Lazarus said commun­ications had largely broken down between Mr Palmer and himself. “Communication was one of the big things, or lack of it actually,” he told radio station 4BC.

“Waking up to announcements that I had no idea about wasn’t a good look and it certainly wasn’t a way that our party should be run.”

PUP national director Peter Burke said Ms Sanders Lazarus had been sacked “primarily because she failed to comply with the terms of her employment”.

Asked if his wife’s dismissal had been the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, Senator Lazarus said: “Maybe you could call it that.

“At the end of the day, I haven’t been happy with the way the party was heading ... I just thought it was the best thing for me, my family and the people of Queensland.”

He said he would always choose his wife over “anything”.

Ms Sanders Lazarus said she had worked 70 to 90 hours a week as a senior adviser to senators Lazarus and Wang.

“I did make it clear to Clive that I was not happy with being bullied and spoken to using foul language,” she said.

Mr Palmer lashed Senator Lazarus as “unprofessional” for having “spat the dummy”.

His candidates were selected hastily and “unfortunately many ... were opportunists interested in themselves more than the ideas the party represented”, he said.

However, Senator Lazarus said Mr Palmer had personally approache­d him to head the ticket.

Additional reporting: Jared Owens