Pauline Hanson declares WAR on Matt Canavan as the brand new Nationals chief requires ‘extra Australian infants’ in weird pitch
Pauline Hanson has sparked a war of words with new Nationals leader Matt Canavan, after she accused the Queensland senator of joining the ‘woke pile-on’.
Party members elected Victorian MP Darren Chester as deputy leader.
David Littleproud fought back tears on Tuesday as he announced he would be stepping down after years in the top job.
Canavan, 45, fired a warning shot to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson as he addressed an eager press pack on Wednesday.
‘Pauline has been in politics more than double for the time I’ve been. And I struggle to point to a single dam, single road, single hospital, and Pauline Hanson has delivered in Australia,’ the father-of-five said.
‘I can point to swathes of those things with the work I’ve done with Michelle Landry, Colin Boyce, and others in Central Queensland.
‘That is ultimately why we’re here, to deliver results. We’re here to make people’s lives better.’
Hanson hit back, accusing Canavan of joining ‘the woke pile-on’ in a furious X post.
Nationals Senator Matt Canavan (pictured) is the party’s new leader
Pauline Hanson accused Canavan on joining ‘the woke pile-on’ in a furious X post
Canavan, 45, is pictured with his wife Andrea. The couple share four sons and one daughter
‘Canavan joins the likes of the ABC, the Guardian and left-wing fact checkers who have started a war against One Nation to try and tear us down,’ she said.
‘Canavan has found himself in strange company against One Nation, the only party truly dedicated to leading the agenda on ending net-zero, cutting immigration and putting Australia first.’
When asked how he would differentiate the Nationals from One Nation, Canavan said he worried about ‘where Pauline would take this country’.
‘What unites us as a country is more than what divides us. Even when we have these robust debates, we have a wonderful country with wonderful people from all different backgrounds, religions, etc,’ he said.
Canavan said he stood for the leadership because ‘we are losing our country’.
‘People are losing their standard of living. They’re losing their confidence. We’re losing our relaxed and larrikin nature, and we have to fight back for Australians. So all we need to do to revive our great nation is to have more Australian everything. We need to manifest hyper Australia here,’ he said.
‘We need more Australian babies. We need more Australian humour, more Australian jokes. We need more Australian everything.
‘We don’t need to look overseas for the future.’
David Littleproud (pictured with his wife Amelia) resigned on Tuesday in an emotional press conference where he said he was too ‘buggered’ to continue
Canavan’s former mentor, Barnaby Joyce, has warned the new Nationals leader and his deputy could clash over policy positions.
Joyce defected to One Nation earlier this year, as the party surges in the polls.
‘Their hearts will be in the right place with Matt; it’s just policy will be completely different,’ Joyce told reporters.
‘I know Matt, I know him very well, and he is an exceptional guy and a good fella, but his policy beliefs are just a million miles away from where a lot of the Liberal Party is, and to be quite frank, they’re quite a distance away from where Darren [Chester] is.’
Daily Mail’s political editor Peter van Onselen said Canavan would need to play the team game as he goes up Joyce.
‘Pauline Hanson won’t fear Matt Canavan, and she’ll have Barnaby Joyce to help explain him to her,’ van Onselen said.
‘But Canavan will likely try and match much of the populism One Nation spruiks.’
Canavan was elected senator in 2014 and was a minister in Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison‘s governments. A trained economist, Canavan previously worked as Barnaby Joyce’s chief-of-staff when he was Agriculture Minister.
Canavan’s former mentor, Barnaby Joyce, has congratulated him on the leadership, but warned there could be tensions between him and Chester over policy
The Queensland senator is a rare party leader from the Senate. Traditionally, leaders sit in the House of Representatives.
On Tuesday, Littleproud fought back tears as he told reporters he was exhausted after years in the top job and presiding over two traumatic splits in the Coalition.
‘I’m buggered and I’ve had enough,’ he said.
Littleproud will stay in Parliament and plans to recontest his Queensland seat of Maranoa, one of the safest electorates in the country, which he has held since 2016.
He also left open the possibility of returning to the Coalition frontbench under the party’s new leadership.
