MP urges against left push
GROOM MP Garth Hamilton has doubled down on the Coalition’s need to change direction following its election loss, saying the party had “no credibility” to talk about issues like the environment.
Mr Hamilton, who was returned in Groom but suffered the largest primary vote drop of any sitting LNP MP in Queensland, appeared on Andrew Bolt’s show on Sky News to discuss the fallout from Saturday night.
When asked by Mr Bolt whether moderate Liberals like Simon Birmingham were right when they said the party was punished electorally for not doing enough on climate change, Mr Hamilton was emphatic with his answer.
“No, simple answer no, absolutely not,” he replied.
“We need to continue to be a broad church, that’s what the Liberal Party has always been, but we are a broad church of the centre-right and that’s the bit that sometimes we’ve lost in recent times.
“We went down a path, quite frankly, where we had no credibility talking on issues that aren’t our issues.
“I don’t think the public at all believed (it) when we talked about the environment and any range of issues.”
Maranoa MP David Littleproud, a Nationals member, issued a stinging criticism of his colleague and senator Matt Canavan over his campaign against Net Zero.
“What did hurt was Matt Canavan’s comments around Net Zero being dead,” he said.
“It wasn’t just Liberal seats, I can tell you it was National Party seats that also went back … like Cowper where we had a 10 per cent swing (against us), we nearly lost Nichols.
“While we respect in our party room, you can have a divergent view, prosecuting them in the middle of election campaign is not smart.”
He also rubbished the calls from Senator Canavan and other conservative Coalition voices for the parties to move further to the right, with Littleproud declaring the Coalition shouldn’t “panic”.
“History shows that you don’t win elections by chasing extremities,” he said.
“What Australians want is a sensible centre. That’s where you win elections.”
Liberal MP Karen Andrews on Wednesday said Peter Dutton “would be elected unopposed as the leader of the Liberal Party”.