Nationals MP Michael McCormack believes David Littleproud has done enough to stay on as party leader amid a challenge from Matt Canavan.
The Nationals will hold a partyroom meeting on Monday afternoon to decide on its leader and deputy leader after a ballot was called as is standard following an election.
Only Mr Littleproud, the Maranoa MP who has been leader since the 2022 election loss, and Rockhampton-based Senator Canavan have put their hands up for leader.
Mr McCormack, a former party leader, was quizzed by Sky News host Laura Jayes about whether he thought Mr Littleproud had earned the right to remain in the top role.
“Yes I do. But as David said himself, it’s a healthy democracy when you can have a ballot,” he told AM Agenda.
“We always vacate all of those positions every election. That is the normal process the Nationals go through. Matthew Canavan has put his hand up to contest the leadership.
“Who knows, there may be others but at this stage it’s just David and Matthew. And I wish them both well.
“Matthew obviously has been very strident on a number of topics and good luck to him. But David has led a team where we’ve retained for the sixth election in a row each and every one of our lower house seats.”
The Riverina MP, who led the party from February 2018 to June 2021, said he was not interested in taking back the leadership at this stage.
“I’ve had my turn in the past. We’ll see what happens in the future but you never say never to these things but it’s not going to happen this afternoon,” he said.
The Nationals will have a new deputy leader after Perin Davey lost her spot in the Senate.
Mr McCormack noted only Page MP Kevin Hogan had publicly declared he was putting his hand up for the deputy role.
The partyroom is also set to discuss the Nationals stance on nuclear, after Labor repeatedly attacked the costing of the Coalition’s policy during the election campaign.
Mr McCormack is adamant there still needs to be a “national, rational discussion” about nuclear.
“I don’t think we just dump the policy totally. You’ll find a lot of Liberals, too, who agree with me in that regard,” he said.
“Let’s have that discussion on a national level. Let’s not dump it just because it was one part of an election where obviously there was a decisive result.
“But look, we’ll have an earnest and robust discussion I’m sure in the National partyroom following the leadership vote this afternoon and it’ll good to be part of that.”
The leadership of the Liberal Party will be decided on Tuesday.
