May 12, 2025
Member for Maranoa David Littleproud was re-elected as leader of the Nationals after a behind-doors vote in Canberra on Monday afternoon.
Member for Page Kevin Hogan was elected as Deputy Leader, replacing Senator Perin Davey.
Senator Bridget McKenzie will continue as Leader of the Nationals in the Senate.
The margins of the vote were not revealed.
Mr Littleproud’s re-election follows public statements by Member for Wide Bay Llew O’Brien (see below) and a TV interview by Member for Flynn Colin Boyce stating their support for rival candidate Matt Canavan.
Mr O’Brien and Mr Boyce are the MPs for the other two Federal electorates which cover the South Burnett.
They both urged the party to ditch support for the Paris Agreement and a “net zero” approach to energy policy.
Speaking after the result was announced, Mr Littleproud said it was “great honour” to lead the Nationals.
“I am proud of our achievements over the past three years,” he told reporters.
“I think we set the policy agenda.
“We were the first ones to make a principled position on the Voice. We didn’t do that in a rushed way. We listened to both sides.
“We got a policy position and made sure that we set the tone for the conversation that the Australian people had, and that actually turned the result.
“It was the Nationals that led that.
“We’ve had the courage on nuclear energy, something that our party room has believed in for a very long time. An all-renewables approach won’t work.”
Mr Littleproud said the next election could be won by the Coalition.
“Make no mistake, the fundamentals haven’t changed,” he said.
“The cost of living is going nowhere. All-renewables won’t work. Your energy bills are going to go up.
“Someone’s going to have to have the courage to face up to it at some point, and it’s going to be the Nationals that will continue to be there.”
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Member for Wide Bay Llew O’Brien’s Facebook post:
On Monday, the Nationals will hold a party room meeting in Canberra, and Senator Matt Canavan has announced he will be challenging David Littleproud for the leadership.
I will be voting for Matt Canavan to become Leader of The Nationals.
David and I entered Parliament together in 2016. Since then, he has done outstanding work – both as a minister in government and as leader of the Nationals. He has a strong list of achievements and is a capable and worthy leader. I consider David a friend, and this decision has not been easy. I have supported his leadership over the last term and, if he wins the ballot on Monday, he will continue to have my support.
However, I am supporting Matt Canavan because he is also an exceptional candidate for leadership – and because, like me, he recognises that the targets under the Paris Agreement are not in Australia’s national interest.
Labor’s plan for an 82% renewable energy grid is already proving to be unreliable, unaffordable, and incapable of supporting a modern industrial economy. When every segment of the energy market – generation, transmission, components, and even the consumers – must be propped up with taxpayer subsidies, and prices are still among the highest in the world, the failure of the government’s energy policy is plain to see.
That is why I have consistently advocated for Australia to play to its strengths: delivering low-cost, reliable, dispatchable power from our abundant natural resources. Australia should have the cheapest electricity in the world. Instead, Labor’s warped ideology allows our uranium and coal to be exported overseas – powering the economies of our competitors – while shaming their use here at home. It is sheer hypocrisy. Labor governments are happy to accept coal and uranium royalties to fund their budgets but refuse to let Australian families and businesses benefit from the same resources.
There are better, more responsible ways to secure our nation’s energy future than flattening agricultural land with solar panels, building intrusive wind farms, or carving up the countryside with high-voltage transmission lines.
This is not just a policy debate – it’s a matter of national strength and independence.
While Australia is refusing to build new coal-fired power stations, China is moving full steam ahead. In 2024 alone, it began construction on 95 gigawatts of coal-fired generation – more than our entire national energy system across all sources combined. Yet we remain told to shut ours down in the name of climate responsibility.
At the same time, Australian taxpayers are funding China’s so-called “climate adaptation” projects through our contributions to the United Nations Green Climate Fund. That same China recently sent warships into Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone, just 150 miles off the coast of Sydney, and conducted live-fire exercises without notice – forcing the diversion of 49 domestic flights. China will always act in its own interest, and I do not believe that includes reaching net zero emissions by 2060.
We are in an era of growing global instability – with war in Europe, Russian eyeing off military expansion into our region, and trade tensions escalating. It will not be the nations that most faithfully implement the socialist green-left’s doctrine that emerge stronger. It will be the most resilient and self-reliant.
Aspiring to make the world a better place is something we all support – but the Paris Agreement and net zero targets will not deliver that outcome.
I refuse to go down in history as someone who stayed silent while flawed and illogical policies were imposed – policies that future generations will view as examples of virtue-signalling at the expense of common sense.
Australia is a great nation – resourceful, principled, and capable of balancing environmental responsibility with the national interest. But as long as we are bound by the Paris Agreement and its targets, we are limiting our country’s ability to chart its own future.
I use an old Australian colloquialism when I say, It’s time to call ‘bullshit’ on the Paris Agreement and that is what Matt and I are doing.
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Member for Flynn Colin Boyce’s Facebook post:
[UPDATED]
So David Littleproud is proud of the way the Nationals “set the tone” for the referendum vote? He should be hanging his head in shame. “If you don’t know, vote no” was effective because it stoked fear and gave a green light to racists to post all sorts of rubbish on social media.
David in my view was missing in action for Maranoa over that past 3 years. We have gone backwards in the area of remote and rural health, some towns have zero health services. He didn’t visit Yarraman during the election campaign and that was also disappointing. The only way is up from here as we have hit the bottom and here is a politician that doesn’t have to work very hard for your vote.
I think David is out of touch with his electorate, especially the South Burnett and Kingaroy.
Spruiking nuclear for Tarong as he did with little to no consultation was ridiculous – but as leader of the Nationals party, he probably had to lead by example so his party would follow.
With the margin that he holds the seat, he probably thinks he doesn’t need to consult anyway because it’s such a safe nationals seat.
(You are right Mick, he doesn’t have to work hard for our vote at all).
In saying all of that, the other parties are even more out of touch – it says quite a lot that Labor put no effort into our area, no how-to-vote cards, no people in red shirts trying to get your vote, nothing.
(Did anybody actually meet the ALP candidate Alex Newman or see him out campaigning?)
And yet, even with no effort, Labor has ended up with approx. 29% of the two-party preferred vote. I wonder what Labor would achieve if they actually tried? Could have gone the same way as Dickson (electorate).
I’ve voted LNP for a long time, but I walked into the polling booth on the 3rd May knowing I didn’t want to vote for David, but I also knew no one else was actually going to beat him.
I spoke with a number of people on election day who had similar feelings about David, but they all said the same thing afterwards – who else is there?
(I know there were minor parties, but it’s going to take a lot of effort for one of them to beat David, and none of them tried hard enough. In my opinion, I feel none of the minor parties fielded a high quality candidate worth voting for. And Labor did the same…).
The LNP did this to themselves, now they need to wear it and sort their crap out.
It’s no different to the problems that LNP had in Queensland in the last few years – thankfully Crisafulli managed to get most of the LNP to work together (and hopefully he can keep them in line to keep the wins coming). Maybe Sussan will stand a better chance, but only time will tell.