The former Palmer United party senator Glenn Lazarus has lodged papers with the Australian Electoral Commission to start his own political party.
The new party, called Glenn Lazarus Team, comes with the tagline: “Doing the hard yards for Queensland”.
The former professional rugby league footballer said his priorities were economic growth, addressing high rates of unemployment in the state, and dealing with the drought.
“I am determined to represent the people of Queensland to the best of my ability and it is essential that I build a strong team around me to do this,” Lazarus said.
“I have worked with some excellent high-performing teams for most of my life. I feel I understand what it takes to build and maintain a strong team and I now have the scope and capability to do this.”
He said on Thursday morning he did not yet have candidates in mind for the party.
Lazarus has been sitting on the Senate crossbench as an independent since cutting ties with the PUP in March. He makes up one of the crucial crossbench votes that the government needs in order to pass legislation.
His departure from the PUP means the government must negotiate with him separately, making it harder for it to secure consensus.
The PUP’s founder, Clive Palmer, wasted no time criticising Lazarus’s new party, labelling the former member a “deserter”.
“What I and many Australians find most disappointing is a politician saying one thing before an election and then doing something entirely different once elected,” he said.”
“Glenn Lazarus received only 6,000 votes at the last election while the Palmer United Party received in excess of 250,000. He then deserts the team and the constituents who voted for it when it got too hot on the field.
“He chose self-interests and now chooses to have his own party using public funding,’’ Palmer said.
Palmer is threatening to sue Lazarus and the Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie, who left the party in November, for the amount of money the PUP spent on their election campaigns.
Lambie announced the formation of her own party this year, with a focus on delivering services for Tasmania.
The PUP’s shrinking electoral fortunes led Palmer to announce on Tuesday that the party would no longer be fielding state candidates, choosing instead to focus on federal seats.
