General News
2 June, 2022
Littleproud made leader
The distance from Clifton to the upper echelons of Canberra is now just a little bit closer following the appointment on Monday of Member for Maranoa David Littleproud as the leader of the National Party of Australia.
Mr Littleproud defeated incumbent leader Barnaby Joyce and Victorian MP Darren Chester in a party room vote in Canberra.
New South Wales Senator Perin Davey has assumed Mr Littleproud’s old role as Deputy Leader.
It is commonplace for a leadership spill to be held soon after every election.
Although the Nationals did not lose any of their 16 House of Representatives seats at the election, they did not gain any either and in many electorates including Maranoa there were swings against them.
“Forty years ago I joined the National Party as a six-year-old handing out for my father at Chinchilla Courthouse as he tried to become the Member for Condamine,” Mr Littleproud said.
“I am all that is the National Party.
“I believe passionately in the National Party because we are all there is about regional and rural Australia.”
He said being elected is the proudest day of is professional life, leading a party that over the past forty years he has believed in.
“It has been the National Party that has guided me to be who I am and what I am.”
Mr Littleproud said he will lean on former Deputy Prime Ministers Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack to make sure rural and regional Australia is not forgotten.
He also said the new look party is not about lurching left or right chasing extremities but staying in the “sensible” centre.
It has been a quick ascension up the ladder for Mr Littleproud, who became the Member for Maranoa less than six years ago in July 2016, succeeding Bruce Scott.
His link to politics of course goes much further back than that, as his father Brian Littleproud was a member of the Queensland Parliament from 1983 to 2001, representing the divisions of Condamine and Western Downs.
David became the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources in 2017, dropping the Agriculture portfolio in 2019 and picking up Drought, Rural Finance, Natural Disaster and Emergency Management.
Most recently, from July last year until the election, he was the Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia.
He became the Deputy Leader of the Nationals in February 2020 under the leadership of Michael McCormack, replacing Bridget McKenzie.
On Saturday, Mr Littleproud advised Barnaby Joyce that he would be challenging for
the leadership.
“I feel this is the appropriate time to put myself forward for my party room’s consideration as their leader,” Mr Littleproud said at the time.
“Ultimately, this is a decision on who will lead the Nationals to the 2025 election.”
It has been close to six years since a parliamentarian representing Queensland has been the leader of the Nationals, that person being was Warren Truss.
On the back benches of Parliament, Barnaby Joyce will now join his recent running mate Scott Morrison, who resigned as leader of the Liberal Party and has been replaced by Peter Dutton.
