Kevin Hogan made deputy of Nationals as party chooses very little change to leadership

David Littleproud will remain leader of the Nationals Party, after he saw off a challenge from fellow Queenslander Matt Canavan.

In a closed-door ballot the Maranoa MP, first elected to lead the party in 2022, received the majority of support despite some votes flowing to Senator Canavan, who went into the vote calling for the party to walk away from net zero.

Page MP Kevin Hogan was chosen as deputy leader, after Perin Davey lost her senate spot, while Bridget McKenzie remains Senate leader.

“It’s a great honour to lead our great party. I’m proud of our achievements over the last three years, three years where I think we set the policy agenda,” Mr Littleproud said after the meeting, as he ran through the Nationals list of achievements during the last term - including opposing the Voice referendum, and pushing for nuclear energy and divestiture powers.

Moving forward, he said the Nationals would review all of its policy offerings — staying tight lipped on what the future of the nuclear power plan and net zero would be.

“We’re going to review all our policies and we’ll do that in a calm, methodical way . . . The reality is that the leader of the National Party doesn’t determine the policy direction of our party, the collective does,” he said, adding “the fundamentals haven’t changed” on nuclear.

Senator McKenzie said both the Nationals and the Liberal Party needed to “listen to the Australian people with humility, understanding that these were collective decisions of both the Liberal and the National party”.

“We need to respect their decision, and we need to have a deep, honest look at what went wrong,” she said.

Senator Canavan said despite losing the leadership challenge, he will “keep up the fight”.

“I am proud to have fought for policies to revive Australia as the lucky country,” he said on social media.

“I may not have won the battle, but the war on net zero madness continues.”

The Nationals, who automatically “spill” the leadership after each election, kept all of their seats at the election but fell short of claiming Bendigo or Bullwinkel, or reclaiming Callare from defector Andrew Gee.

The party was rocked last week after high-profile Country Liberal Party senator Jacinta Napijinpa Price defected to the Liberal Party to run for deputy leader on Tuesday.

Mr Littleproud on Monday reiterated he was “disappointed” in the Senator’s move, but vowed his party would “be the adults in the room, because that’s what the National Party’s been for the last three years”.

As for the future of the Coalition as a partnership, and whether the Nationals will ask for more from the Liberal Party, Mr Littleproud said he wouldn’t telecast the negotiations he intends to have with whoever becomes the new Liberal leader.

“The reality is is whoever becomes the leader of the Liberal Party will have constructive discussion and we will enter that in a mature or constructive way,” he said.

“For us, we want to be a stable and trusted force in the Coalition.”