By Shane Wright
Queensland senator Gerard Rennick has quit the LNP to form his own party ahead of the looming federal election, potentially splitting right-wing support in the state.
Rennick, who earlier this year narrowly lost preselection for the third spot on the LNP’s Queensland Senate ticket, on Sunday night said he did not want to spend what could be his last few months in the upper house “swinging in the breeze like a carcass”.
Gerard Rennick is an outspoken member of the Queensland Liberal National Party.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Instead, he plans to create the Gerard Rennick People First Party to contest the election that is due by May next year and use his position in the Senate to agitate for debate on economic issues ranging from the tax system to childcare.
He hopes to start the party registration process on Monday, enabling voters to cast their votes above the line on the Senate ballot paper.
The move reduces the number of Coalition senators to 30 and increases the crossbench to 10 members.
He is the second major party senator to resign from their party this year. Last month, Labor’s Fatima Payman quit the government to sit on the crossbench.
Rennick said his move was nothing against Liberal leader Peter Dutton, arguing it was his way to bring up “bread and butter” issues that needed to be publicly debated.
“I’m going to sit in the Senate for who knows how much longer. I’d rather use that time to talk about really important issues rather than just play tiddlywinks,” he told this masthead on Sunday night.
Among the issues Rennick wants to debate is an increase in the tax-free threshold to $40,000 from its current level of $18,200 and the introduction of stamp duty on share trading, with the revenue used to axe state and territory payroll taxes.
Rennick said the way childcare support was structured disadvantaged people who may want to employ a nanny or use short periods of childcare for a few hours.
Rennick also supports a public bank for infrastructure.
He said he would use Senate processes to get inquiries underway into these and other economic issues.
“After learning how the Senate works I know a bit about how it works that we can get these inquiries up and going,” he said.
Rennick said he was unsure if he would have party representation across other states and territories in time for the next election, noting he wanted to ensure he could properly vet potential candidates.
Rennick was elected at the 2019 election when Labor’s primary vote collapsed to just 22.6 per cent, giving it just a single senator in Queensland.
Four right-wing representatives were elected including three from the LNP and Malcolm Roberts from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
At the 2022 election, Labor increased its primary vote enough to gain two senators, while the Greens also had Larissa Waters elected. The LNP returned two senators while Pauline Hanson was returned.
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