Ian Macfarlane’s controversial bid to defect from the Liberal to the National party has been blocked by the LNP executive.
The Queensland LNP confirmed the decision in a statement issued on Monday afternoon: “The LNP will not be supporting Ian Macfarlane’s intention to move to the Nationals party room in Canberra.”
The LNP president, Gary Spence, said the decision had been made by the state executive “after taking into consideration the best interests of the LNP in Queensland”.
“While LNP members of the Groom electorate voted to support Mr Macfarlane’s decision, the interests of our party beyond his electorate were taken into account,” he said.
“In rejecting Ian’s request to move to the Nationals’ party room, the LNP acknowledges his enormous contribution to our party and importantly to the people of Groom and Australia.”
Addressing reporters briefly after the meeting, Macfarlane said the state party executive would have to answer to grassroots members in his federal electorate of Groom for failing to conform with their wishes.
“The LNP is a grassroots party and the executive will no doubt answer to the members in Groom,” he told reporters on Monday.
Macfarlane said he was disappointed by the decision of the LNP state executive, but he accepted the outcome.
He said he would not make an immediate decision about his future in the federal parliament. “I’ll be taking some time over Christmas and making an announcement in the new year,” he said.
The former resources minister said he might continue on in politics or move into the corporate sector. “I’m not ready to retire from working, I feel there is a lot more I can do.”
Macfarlane said the defection was not a fundamental miscalculation, despite Monday’s boilover, which has left his parliamentary career in limbo.
Monday’s decision by the state executive took the Nationals leadership in Canberra entirely by surprise. Their expectation was Macfarlane’s decision would be rubber-stamped by the executive after a certain amount of debate.
Macfarlane’s defection had been encouraged by the Nationals leader Warren Truss, and his deputy leader Barnaby Joyce, much to the chagrin of the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who was left in the dark until the end of the negotiations.
Given the Nationals were using the Macfarlane defection as a mechanism to push for greater cabinet representation, the decision by the LNP executive removes a significant headache for the prime minister.
Joyce told the ABC he was unhappy with the decision. “I think that it’s very important that what I was hoping for was a mechanism to get better representation to regional areas and to regional Queensland,” Joyce told the ABC.
“Obviously I believe the people of Groom made a very strong decision the other day about their wishes.”
In Queensland, the Liberal and National parties merged into a single Liberal National party (LNP) in 2008, but divisions remain and Macfarlane’s planned defection opened a new round of public tensions.
Queensland seats are designated as either Liberal or National electorates and when in Canberra the LNP’s representatives sit in the corresponding party rooms.
Macfarlane’s decision to switch camps in the final sitting week of parliament for 2015 prompted an outburst of open acrimony in government ranks, particularly when the former resources minister made it clear the defection was prompted by a desire that he rejoin the Turnbull ministry.
Malcolm Turnbull dumped Macfarlane from the frontbench when he was sworn in as prime minister in September, arguing he wanted to make room in the government for renewal.
The dumping of Macfarlane was a surprise given he was close to Turnbull personally and was a key backer during his turbulent period as opposition leader.
But Macfarlane’s efforts to reclaim his lost place in the ministry prompted Liberals to accuse Macfarlane of trying to “game the system” by engineering his return to the frontbench as a National, just two and a half months after he was demoted to the backbench.
In the lead-up to the decision, senior Queensland Liberal ministers George Brandis and Peter Dutton said Macfarlane had hidden his plans when he was recently re-endorsed to contest the next election on the basis he would remain a Liberal.
In a brief press conference after the meeting, Spence told reporters the LNP state executive “anguished over the decision.” He said the group understood “we were considering Ian’s career in the parliament” – but the objective was to prioritise “the stability of the federal coalition.”
The LNP president said the vote was “very close, but in the end, decisive.”
Despite telling reporters he was motivated by preserving stability in the coalition, Spence denied he was concerned the Liberal and National parties might fracture in the state. He said the coalition relationship had “never been stronger.”
The opposition leader Bill Shorten declared the episode reflected poorly on the prime minister.
Shorten said Turnbull promoted Mal Brough to the ministry, but demoted Macfarlane. “His poor judgment caused this split and this crisis in the Coalition,” Shorten said.
“The government under Malcolm Turnbull is ending the year the same way it started under Tony Abbott: bickering amongst themselves,” the Labor leader said.
