ADDRESS TO 2024 LIBERAL NATIONAL PARTY ANNUAL CONVENTION

And good morning to all of our members, to our honorary life members, to our new members, to our members who’ve been a member for a very long time.

We are on the cusp of the federal election. This is the last state convention before the next federal election.

And in 2021, the strongest contribution to the Coalition’s electoral results came from both the LNP and the Nationals.

Queensland was the only state the Coalition won in 2021 with the LNP securing more than two out of every three federal seats in Queensland.

Our party is doing and has done some of the heaviest lifting to ensure the Coalition is competitive across Australia at the next federal election.

And within the Coalition, the Nationals, the federal party room in which I sit has done some of the heaviest lifting to ensure that the Coalition is competitive.

We didn’t only hold onto every sitting seat in Queensland, but also every Nationals seat in Victoria and New South Wales.

But here, yes, and here in Queensland with quality candidates and the tireless efforts of our membership and state and federal secretaries, we successfully transitioned those seats where we had retirements. And I welcome the incredibly strong additions to our team in Colin Boyce and Andrew Willcox.

Andrew and Colin joined a Federal Nationals party room that for the past nine years have been used to being in government, a party room that was used to direct access to ministers and decision makers.

The party room used to the resources of government, but they joined a party room that now found itself in opposition. A place that is hard to be honest, where vastly different tactics are needed to represent and deliver for rural and regional Australians.

And when David Littleproud took on the leadership after our election loss, he did so having served as the Minister for Agriculture, for Northern Australia and Emergency Management.

Now the list of what he achieved in his time as minister is long. In the water portfolio in the Murray Darling. Important reforms there in emergency management, the Recovery Agency, and ERF, the Bushfires Fund, Rebuilding Australia.

But it is in agriculture that I see the greatest changes for our people who do the incredibly important work of growing and securing food and fibre for us all.

He broke the dollar a litre milk, securing fair prices for Australian dairy farmers, ag visas to mean that crops could be planted and picked, live export reform, export access, the $5 billion drought fund and bank offsetting for FMDs. Show society funds.

I could go on and on because it was such an incredibly energetic and effective time for David as agricultural minister.

I first met David in Rockhampton, of course at Beef Australia in about 2015. And it was his energy and commitment and desire to fight, which leaped out to me.

And he and Amelia have been incredible supporters of all of our regional team right across Australia.

His background in agricultural banking brought him to the kitchen table of so many rural and regional households.

But he came to the federal parliament already steeped in the values of the Nationals.

His father Brian had served as a cabinet minister in both the Bjelke-Petersen and Borbidge-Sheldon governments.

And from opposition, David brings his energy and a focus that’s been critical in driving the Coalition’s already announced hallmark policies, bringing down energy costs to families and businesses by embracing nuclear in our energy needs.

Bringing down grocery prices with the policy of divestiture powers to break up the stranglehold monopolies in groceries and hardware. And importantly, fighting off the terrible policy of taxing farmers for biosecurity reasons.

So I’m delighted to introduce a man who will fight for us, who will fight for you. He’s strong, he’s courageous, and he is our Federal National Party Leader, David Littleproud.

ENDS