Nationals leader David Littleproud emerges victorious from partyroom vote
Nationals leader David Littleproud has emerged victorious from a leadership vote but a battle royale is now set to erupt.
Nationals leader David Littleproud has emerged victorious from a leadership vote of the 20-strong party-room.
But a battle royale is now set erupt among the Coalition partners over climate change targets with a solid bloc of Nationals urging change.
The deputy Nationals leader is Kevin Hogan and the Senate leader is Bridget McKenzie.
The Nationals did not disclose the vote.
Challenger Matt Canavan was expected to fall short but did secure an absentee vote from Barnaby Joyce who is undergoing treatment for early stage prostate cancer.
Some had suggested Senator Canavan’s vote will be around the 7 mark.
Earlier, Senator Canavan told the Today show that if he’s elected as leader, the party will dump its net zero energy policy.
“I definitely don’t think the mob we’ve got is going to be great for the country, but as I say, I think the perhaps the original sin of the campaign that we put forward was that we were telling the country that things were really bad, but then we weren’t proposing to make any radical changes to make it better,” he said.
“And those two things didn’t add up. So I’m proposing a changed approach, a different approach, and obviously, if we’re going to win the next election, we need some change and we’re only going to have a fighting chance if we put up a fight.”
Nationals leader addresses net zero targets
Speaking at a press conference after the result, Mr Littleproud said there were no decisions made on net zero climate change targets but he continued to back nuclear power.
“Today was about the ballot of the leadership of the National Party. It wasn’t a policy meeting, but we’ll have discussions,’’ he said.
“We’re going to review all our policies and we’ll do that in a calm, methodical way, similar to the way that we work through the voice to make sure we understand the implications of any decisions we make.
“So we’re not rushing into anything, but we will work through that in a collegial way.’’
Mr Littleproud said he was pleased the Nationals had bucked the trend of savage swings experienced by the Liberal Party.
“We were the first ones to make a principled position on the Voice,’’ he said.
“We didn’t do that in a rushed way. We listened to both sides. We got to a policy position and made sure that we set the tone, set the tone for the conversation that the Australian people had and that actually turned the result.
“We’ve had the courage on nuclear energy, something that our party room has believed in for a very long time, that the all renewables approach won’t work.
“But it was our party room for many people before us that had the courage to come forward. But it was us. It was our party room that delivered it, and I’m proud of the fact that we were the ones to get divestiture powers up.”
Senate leader Bridget McKenzie said the Coalition needed to take a deep, honest look about what went wrong.
“The Coalition was handed a significant defeat, and we need to listen to the Australian people with humility.”
Liberal Senator drops a bomb on Angus Taylor
Liberal Senator and political kamikaze operative Hollie Hughes has dropped another bomb on Angus Taylor, accusing him of plotting to replace Peter Dutton before the election.
Just last week, Ms Hughes accused the shadow treasurer of having “zero economic policy to sell” and expressed “concerns about his capability” in a brutal public spray on ABC radio.
But this time Mr Taylor is hitting back, with supporters slamming the latest salvo as “out of control” and claiming she’s “lost the plot”.
Senator Hughes popped into Sky News this morning to suggest Mr Taylor was already plotting for the leadership before Mr Dutton and his party lost the last election.
She cited the social media musings of former Queensland MP George Christensen, who has been tweeting up a storm suggesting all sorts of malfeasance.
But that’s enraged Mr Taylor’s supporters who say it’s total poppycock.
“She’s out of control. Honestly. There was only one side undermining Dutton this campaign (and the entire term frankly) and I can tell you, it certainly wasn’t us,” a Liberal source said.
“She’s lost the plot.”
An unrepentant Hollie Hughes told news.com.au that she was “literally just citing George’s tweets.”
In one of those tweets. Mr Christensen claims that one of those making calls on Mr Taylor’s behalf was the spouse of a senior NSW Liberal MP.
“And one MP told her to grow some balls and tell your husband to call me himself,’’ Senator Hughes recounted.
But Mr Taylor denies anyone was calling around on his behalf.
She also criticised Senator Jacinta Price for putting her name up for the deputy leadership.
Senator Hughes said that Mr Taylor had insulted every Liberal MP and Senator by overlooking them for deputy and trying to get outside talent.
“To me, it feels like turning up to an RSL club in a membership form and then saying, by the way, I’m going to run for the board and I want to be president,” she said.
Who’s in and who’s out
With a number of Liberal seats on a knife edge the Liberal Party director Andrew Hirst has had to decide who can and can’t vote in Tuesday’s leadership showdown.
He’s confirmed Bradfield’s Gisele Kapterian who appears to have won with 0.01 per cent of the vote has a golden ticket.
But Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer who failed to unseat Monique Ryan in the Victorian seat of Kooyong does not.
The list provides a few more clues - the Liberals are including the candidate for Longman in the voting class.
There’s then a group of three-cornered contest votes in Flinders the seat of Zoe McKenzie, Monash, Grey and Fischer they are all voting.
The Liberals will be left with 29 lower house seats and 25 senate seats that’s a total of 54 people voting for the leadership.
That doesn’t include Nationals MPs naturally and once they are included the Coalitions numbers in the House of Representatives have still undergone a brutal cull but are over 40.
Shock tilt for Liberal leadership
Meanwhile, a shock new contender has emerged in the battle to be the next leader of the Liberal Party.
Tim Wilson, a marriage equality advocate and economic conservative who proposed to his husband on the floor of Parliament, is weighing his options for a surprise tilt at the top job.
The Liberal MP was one of the few to defeat a Teal at this election, winning back his bayside Melbourne seat of Goldstein from Teal Zoe Daniel against the odds.
Mr Wilson said he was “open” to putting his hand up for the Liberal leadership - taking on Angus Taylor and Sussan Ley - but had to have conversations about where he fits.
In his first sit-down interview since declaring victory, Tim Wilson told Sky News host Peta Credlin last week that it was an option and he’s now confirmed he will make the big call today.
“I’m immensely privileged to have been in the position that I’ve got to. I’ve seen my name being bandied around, but I’m literally just focused on the task at hand,” he said.
“But I want to make this clear, I didn’t go back into parliament just to sit around. I got elected because I believe this country has a bold, ambitious, liberal future,” he said.
“We must make the case and we must be unapologetic in making that case.”
Credlin put him on the spot in the interview, noting to Mr Wilson he did not rule it out.
“You can’t bulls**t me. You’ve got an open mind,” the Sky News host said.
“I’ve got an open mind about these things, but the reality is I am very much focused on how I can play party of a role as a team, because what I want is a bold, confident Liberal Party that projects an alternative liberal vision for this country that builds out the policy stepping stones to get there.
“And that’s what I’m looking for from all of the leadership candidates who are putting themselves forward.”
His main claims to fame are economic policy: he successfully led the charge in fighting against Bill Shorten’s franking credits reforms.
His friend Jason Falinksi told news.com.au that he would be a great leadership option.
“He’s a fighter and he will set his own agenda. I think he can reassemble the electoral coalition that we have had for 80 years, which has disintegrated over the last two elections,’’ he said.
“He’s socially liberal, economically conservative, I think that’s right, but that’s otherwise liberal.
“So he’s someone who believes that the government should be economically responsible, that individuals could be given choices and that resides with citizens, not with the government.
“I don’t think he’s made his mind up.”
In 2016, Mr Wilson proposed to his long term partner when arguing for same-sex marriage reforms.
“In my first speech, I defined our bond by the ring that sits on both of our left hands. They (the rings) are the answer to the question we cannot ask,” an emotional Mr Wilson said.
“So there is only one thing left to do. Ryan Patrick Bolger, will you marry me?”
Mr Bolger replied with a loud “yes”, prompting cheers and applause.
Embarrassing post haunts hopeful Lib leader
As tensions heat up in the lead-up to the Liberal vote on Tuesday, Mr Taylor is getting rinsed on his social media accounts over an embarrassing social media fail from years back.
The Liberal MP will go head-to-head with Sussan Ley and Mr Wilson on Tuesday with the MPs left standing from the electoral bloodbath to decide on a new leader.
But his claim to fame among people who are very online is all about some old posts on his Facebook account.
It was way back in 2019 when the Liberal MP or a staffer operating his account was caught out on his official Facebook page.
He was spotted replying to his own post, telling himself he was “fantastic”.
The Angus Taylor account then told the Angus Taylor post, “well done Angus”.
It’s been used against him in parliament ever since, with Labor MPs routinely shouting “well done Angus!” every time he gets to his feet.
The post in question was spruiking an extra 1000 car spots at Campbelltown station, in the electorate next to New South Wales seat of Hume.
Just hours after the post, the same Facebook account replied to its own post, “Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus”.
The Facebook whoopsie made international news and was even reported by the BBC.
The UK’s former shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, also once tweeted his own name (“Ed Balls”) instead of searching it, in an event that was so beloved it had its own commemorative day, known as Ed Balls Day.
Another politician does an ‘Angus Taylor’
This year, Independent MP Andrew Gee was accused of being caught doing an “Angus Taylor” by replying to a Facebook post from his own account.
He posted a statement on Facebook about the Nationals engaging in “dirty tactics” on day one of the election, claiming they had called an elderly constituent and spread “blatant lies about who I was going to preference in this election”.
In a comment underneath the post, Gee then thanked himself for being a “good guy”.
“Thank you Andrew Gee MP I am new to the area and have received texts from the Nationals and seen nasty ads in the paper from the Teal mob, it has helped me see who is the good guy,” the comment read.
It was later deleted and comments on the post were restricted.
A spokesperson for Mr Gee later blamed the fail on a “new and inexperienced member of the campaign team who had access to the page”.
Senator Jacinta Price will run for deputy
Meanwhile, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has announced she will run for the deputy Liberal Party leadership and is backing Mr Taylor for the top job just days after joining the Liberal Party room.
Hugely popular with the membership base and political donors, Senator Price has the right as a Country Liberal Party MP to choose which party room she sits in.
Endorsing Mr Taylor’s bid for the leadership, Senator Price confirmed on Sunday morning that she would run as his deputy.
“Today I announce my candidacy for Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and my endorsement for Angus Taylor’s candidacy for Leader,” Senator Price said.
“As I’ve said with respect to my decision to change party rooms, these are not matters which I take lightly and this decision today brings with it a great deal of responsibility which I fully accept.
“There is no question that returning to our roots as a party is critical right now. If we want to inspire and empower Australians across our country, we must return to these roots.”
Senator Price said the party must stand for the “forgotten people” and “mainstream Australians”.
“I think of my grandparents who were by no means the elite, building their first home by hand with hessian bags and washing their clothes in the creek in Warners Bay, NSW,’’ she said.
“But they saw a spark, a vision of a brighter future for generations to come.”
But it’s her decision to run for a leadership position before she’s even sat in the party room that’s raised eyebrows given the deputy has an important pastoral care role.
“She’s perfectly entitled to put her hand up. The party room will decide that but people will have different ideas about that I think,’’ Liberal Senator Dave Sharma said.
Her big switch to the Liberal Party is being backed by former prime minister Tony Abbott and other conservatives.
A vote on the Liberal leadership will take place in Canberra on Tuesday.
‘Traitor’ claim
While her defection is a huge coup for the Liberals, her move has enraged the Nationals who called it the act of a “traitor”.
“By doing this Jacinta is the Lidia Thorpe of the Coalition … before the votes are even counted, she’s switched to another side,” Nationals Senator Matt Canavan said.
Senator Canavan announced on Friday that he would challenge David Littleproud for the leadership of the Nationals.
“(Senator Nampijinpa Price) has disenfranchised the voter, disappointed the members of the Country Liberal Party, she used Nationals Party funds to elect herself and before she’s even elected she’s turned around,’’ he said.
“It’s a traitorous act.”
Liberal MPs welcome Senator Price
Prominent Liberal Senator James Paterson, who is regarded as an ally of Mr Taylor in the leadership tussle, welcomed the switch.
“Delighted by friend @jacintanampijinpa has joined the @liberalaus. Welcome home Jacinta!” he posted on Instagram.
“The Nationals were the first to lead the ‘No’ case in relation to the Voice, backing Senator Nampijinpa Price early and before anyone else did.
Bitter factional fight as two contenders emerge
A bitter factional fight has already erupted with both camps trading blows.
Mr Taylor’s camp assert that Sussan Ley never spoke up in the budget lock up against the treasury spokesman’s disastrous decision to oppose Labor’s tax cuts.
She is being backed by Liberal powerbroker Alex Hawke who was also pivotal in the rise of Scott Morrison.
Ms Ley’s supporters assert that Mr Taylor has been an “absolute disaster” in the economic portfolio.
Who is Sussan Ley?
The mother of three famously secured her pilot licence when she was 20 years old and worked briefly as an air traffic controller before joining the Australian Taxation Office in Albury.
She also changed the spelling of her first name to Sussan, after discovering a numerology theory and joined a punk band in her youth.
More recently, she dressed as Tina Turner to raise money for a cancer charity.
She was first promoted to cabinet by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott in December 2014, replacing Peter Dutton who was moved to the immigration portfolio in a cabinet reshuffle.
She ultimately served as Finance Minister and Health Minister before she was forced to step aside from cabinet over an expenses scandal.
During that period, Labor’s famed dirt unit leaked a dossier of travel records to newspaper outlets to engineer a political crisis.
Leaked emails in the book Party Animals outlined the political research unit’s success in triggering two of the biggest scandals to rock the Abbott and Turnbull government which weakened Tony Abbott’s leadership and also sparked a major review of travel rules.
Meanwhile, prominent anti-Voice campaigner Jacinta Price dropped a bombshell on Thursday revealing that she will move to sit with the Liberal Party in an effort to “rebuild” the party after a blustering election loss.
Co-ordinated attacks on Angus Taylor
The fight between Ms Ley and Liberal Party treasury spokesman Mr Taylor erupted on election night with her supporters slamming him as “an absolute disaster”.
While the contest in theory isn’t a factional fight, Mr Taylor is associated with the right faction and Ms Ley the Centre Right led by powerbroker Alex Hawke.
Mr Taylor, though, may have a harder time, with one colleague blasting his performance as the opposition’s numbers man.
“I have concerns about his capability,” Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes told the ABC.
“I feel that we have zero economic policy to sell. I don’t know what he’s been doing for three years.
Outgoing Senator Hughes has beef with Mr Taylor because he didn’t support her preselection fight.
Originally published as Nationals leader David Littleproud emerges victorious from partyroom vote
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