John Howard lands in middle of LNP defection

JOHN Howard is delivering a gee-up to Liberal National Party MPs on the day they were stunned by the resignations of two colleagues.

JOHN Howard has made a reluctant re-entry to Queensland conservative politics, delivering a gee-up to Liberal National Party MPs on the day they were stunned by the resignations of two colleagues.

In an unfortunate twist of timing for the former prime minister, Mr Howard's long-scheduled address to a strategy session of LNP MPs at Queensland Parliament House was overshadowed by the defection of backbenchers Aidan McLindon and Rob Messenger, who quit to become Independents.

The walkout of the LNP rebels is a setback to state leader John-Paul Langbroek, who was making strong inroads in the polls against Premier Anna Bligh and her long-serving government, despite persistent doubts about his capacity to take the fight up to Labor.

It also has implications for both Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, after Mr McLindon appealed to federal Labor and conservative MPs to back their campaign against the privatisation of state assets by the Bligh government.

ALP strategists are concerned by the potential for Ms Bligh's unpopularity to contaminate the vote of federal Labor in Queensland as it gears up for the general election expected to be pulled on by the Prime Minister in late winter or spring.

Mr Abbott will be concerned about destabilisation of the LNP, the experiment in conservative unity so far confined to Queensland, in what looms as a crucial battleground in the coming poll.

Mr Howard has unhappy memories of state issues from Queensland elbowing their way on to the national scene: his first run as Liberal leader was derailed when the abortive Joh for Canberra campaign in 1987, involving a push for federal power by then Queensland premier Bjelke-Petersen, helped sink the Coalition at national elections.

Mr Howard was subsequently dumped as Liberal leader and went into the political wilderness until 1995, when he regained the job and went on to become the conservatives' longest-serving PM after Sir Robert Menzies.

Mr Howard is due to front a media conference later today after delivering his pep talk to state LNP MPs.

Mr Langbroek and other senior LNP figures shrugged off the resignations of Mr McLindon and Mr Messenger, saying the conservatives were better off without them.

Their departure from the LNP takes to six the number of Independents in Queensland's 89-seat parliament.

Other Independents responded icily to the duo's plan for a network of Independents, possibly to reprise the role of Queensland parliament's long-abolished upper house.

Gladstone Independent Liz Cunningham said she would not join such a coalition, while Sunshine Coast-based Peter Wellington insisted he was far from “sold” on the idea.