Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In late July the annual conference of the Nationals, Queensland, took place, as did the special convention of the Liberal Party of Australia, Queensland division. Those two conferences were co-located at the Sofitel Hotel in Brisbane. I have to say that they took place on the same floor in rooms separated only by a wall that was removable. There were overwhelming votes in favour of merging the two political parties to form the Liberal-National Party of Queensland, or the LNP, at both the Nationals conference and also the convention of the Liberal Party.

We then adjourned for morning tea. The doors were opened, the walls were pulled back, the seating was reassembled and there was an incredible sense of optimism in these two political parties, which for many years had fought it out through the media and had experienced a great deal of disunity. The Labor Party in Queensland had been the beneficiary of that disunity over so many years. Labor had said to us, ‘If you can’t govern yourselves, you can’t govern the state.’ Since the merger there has been the most incredible degree of cooperation. I am very pleased that the honourable member for Hinkler, who is here beside me in the chamber, and I are now in the same political party, the LNP, although under the transitional arrangements, those who were elected as Liberals will continue to sit as Liberals and, similarly, those who were elected as Nationals will continue to sit as Nationals until the next federal election.

We are now seriously competitive under Lawrence Springborg as state leader and Mark McArdle as deputy leader at the next state election whenever Premier Anna Bligh chooses to call it. We hope that there will be a federal merger of the Liberal Party and the Nationals and that they will follow the template which has occurred in Queensland because—let’s face it—people on our side of politics require us to operate as a strong cohesive force. We are that now in Queensland and there has been this most amazing sense of coming together.

I have never experienced such cooperation between those people who are former Liberals and former Nationals. There is a will to work together and an incredible sense of oneness of purpose. The community will benefit. I believe that the Labor Party is the party in Queensland which is now at serious risk. They have been in office for far too long. Now for the first time in many years the LNP provides a credible alternative to Labor. I am quietly confident that, when the next state election is held, the LNP will be elected to government. I am hopeful that the result of electing an LNP government in Queensland will assist the defeat of the Rudd government at the next federal election.