Conservative Queensland senator Matt Canavan has been elected as the new leader of the National party. Darren Chester will serve as his deputy.
The election of a new leader followed the shock resignation of David Littleproud on Tuesday. Part whip Michelle Landry announced the result of the party meeting stating “I think it’s important we’ve got strong leadership in our party and we thank David Littleproud for the amazing job that he’s done. A mighty battle coming up ahead of us, we’ve got two years to get ourselves up in the polls.”
Ahead of the meeting Kevin Hogan and Bridget McKenzie also indicated they would stand for the leadership position.
Senator Canavan was first elected to parliament in 2014 and held ministerial positions on the Turnbull and Morrison government.
Prior to entering parliament Canavan worked as an economist for the Productivity Commission and as an executive at KPMG. He served as Chief of Staff to former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce.
Canavan was an opponent of same-sex marriage, and was opposed to the social media ban for people under age of 16. He is a vocal supporter of fossil fuel industries and often appears in television appearances wearing mining workwear.
The father of five has also spoken about The Wiggles recruiting more members of different genders and ethnic backgrounds, quoting the line “Go Woke, Go Broke” at the children’s entertainers. While in 2025 he called for Australia to follow US President Donald Trump’s move of declaring there are only two genders – male and female.
Speaking to the media in Canberra following his election Senator Canavan appeared alongside his entire team and said he was humbled to be elected to the leadership position.
“I stood for this role because I think we are losing our country. People are losing their standard of living, people are losing their confidence. We’re losing our relaxed and larrikin nature, and we have to fight back for Australians.” Senator Canavan said.
The new leader went on to say that the solutions to all of Australia’s challenges were in the country and its resources.
‘All we need to do to revive our great nation is have more Australia. We need to have more Australian farming, more Australian manufacturing, more Australian jobs, we need to have more Australian everything.
‘We need to manifest a hyper-Australia here, we need to go hyper Australia for our country, we need more Australian babies, we need more Australian humour, we need more Australian jokes, we need more Australian barbeques – that are sometimes, often, fueled by fossil fuels, we need more Australian everything.”
