Speaker 1: Now, I'm sure you can understand Colin that from the
Speaker 1: outside this looks all very messy. First the split, now
Speaker 1: the spill. Is you calling this spill helpful? Just adding
Speaker 1: to the drama?
Speaker 2: Oh? Look, I understand this. And for the people watching
Speaker 2: the listeners, politics is a brutal game.
Speaker 1: The voice you're hearing is that of Colin Boyce, a
Speaker 1: Nationals MP from central Queensland. He represents a huge swathe
Speaker 1: of land, stretching from Bunderberg to Rockhampton, and as he's
Speaker 1: traveled around his electorate he's been confronted by the looming
Speaker 1: threat of one nation.
Speaker 2: There are many people who are absolutely fed up with politics,
Speaker 2: all flavors of it. They all want their Australia back.
Speaker 1: Colin is so dismayed about the split of the Coalition
Speaker 1: he's challenging David Little Proud for the leadership of the
Speaker 1: Nationals on Monday.
Speaker 2: All I can say to you is that this is
Speaker 2: the last disch effort for me to save the National
Speaker 2: Party from its own self destruct.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM today.
Speaker 1: Colin Boyce. Why he's challenging his own leader. The inside
Speaker 1: story of the National split from the coalition and how
Speaker 1: one nation is reshaping the party's future. It's Friday, January thirty, Colin,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. Why have you decided to challenge
Speaker 1: Dave a little proud for the leadership.
Speaker 2: Well, it's long and complicated, but the direction that the
Speaker 2: National Party is headed in now, in my humble opinion,
Speaker 2: is political oblivion. If the National Party continues down the
Speaker 2: course of its standalone entity and under the next federal election,
Speaker 2: we're risk losing our senators in Victoria, New South Wales.
Speaker 2: They simply will not get enough quota to hold their seats.
Speaker 2: That are also opens up the possibility of running three
Speaker 2: cornered elections with one nations the Liberal Party, the National
Speaker 2: Party and so forth. That will split the primary vote
Speaker 2: and arguably some of our members may lose their seats.
Speaker 2: It creates problems around how do you fund a federal
Speaker 2: election cycle as a single entity? Campaign donation fundings and
Speaker 2: all of that changes come in July this year. It's
Speaker 2: highly unlikely that we will attract very much corporate funding
Speaker 2: and as I say, there's a lot of money gets
Speaker 2: spent in election cycles. We will lose our long term
Speaker 2: staff that we've had, particularly those staff attached to shadow
Speaker 2: ministerial portfolios. Those people have been with us for a
Speaker 2: very long time. They have an enormous amount of experience
Speaker 2: in the political arena. We will also lose those travel
Speaker 2: entitlements that are attached to ministerial portfolios and that won't
Speaker 2: allow people to travel to various electorates to campaign during
Speaker 2: the cycle. So it presents a broad range of problems
Speaker 2: for the National Party which will make it very difficult
Speaker 2: to maintain our standing and hold all of our seats.
Speaker 2: So David Little Proud has chosen to take us away
Speaker 2: from the coalition agreement for the second time now. My
Speaker 2: opinion is that needs to be put back together again
Speaker 2: as a matter of haste. David's leadership is now untenable,
Speaker 2: I think in terms of trying to negotiate with the
Speaker 2: Liberal Party, because David, unfortunately has said some things that
Speaker 2: won't be unseid and upset many of them.
Speaker 1: Can we just talk about how we got to this
Speaker 1: place in the first instance, Can you take us back
Speaker 1: to the day which was supposed to be a day
Speaker 1: of mourning for the victims of the Bondai massacre. David
Speaker 1: Little Proud comes out and announces the coalition split.
Speaker 3: Thank you for all coming this morning.
Speaker 1: It's important what was happening behind the scenes. When did
Speaker 1: you first get wind of this?
Speaker 2: I had no idea he was going to do that.
Speaker 2: I think that was a mistake on David's part to
Speaker 2: use that day of national mourning to go into the
Speaker 2: political arena through the media. I remember myself. I had
Speaker 2: an interview from Radio National and I basically told them
Speaker 2: that I didn't want to make any comment in respect
Speaker 2: of politics. It was a day to recognize the tragedy
Speaker 2: of Bondou and it was a time that we all
Speaker 2: needed to reflect as Australians, and that's what should have happened.
Speaker 3: This is not what the National Party want, but I
Speaker 3: cannot stand by and have three courageous senators who put
Speaker 3: their jobs on the line for no reason that has
Speaker 3: any veracity whatsoever, to be disrespected and our party.
Speaker 2: I would have said, look, David, do not go down
Speaker 2: politics today. By all means, get on the national media
Speaker 2: and television and so forth and extend our condolences and
Speaker 2: sympathies and all of that sort of thing, which we
Speaker 2: should have done, which I did. Having said that, David
Speaker 2: chose otherwise.
Speaker 1: You've clearly been unhappy with the way David Little Proud
Speaker 1: has handled the last couple of weeks in particular, But
Speaker 1: how would you rate his leadership since he took over,
Speaker 1: particularly in relation to some of the issues you just raised.
Speaker 2: Oh looked. I think David's done his very best to
Speaker 2: prosecute the arguments when and however he can, and you
Speaker 2: know that's the job of a leader. Having said that,
Speaker 2: he's made some mistakes along the way, and that's understandable.
Speaker 2: Everybody makes mistakes. I think this last few weeks in
Speaker 2: respect to the bill that went to Parliament in the
Speaker 2: emergency session there the handling of that was difficult. I
Speaker 2: understand that, but that's what leaders are for both the
Speaker 2: Liberal leader and the National leader. They were run over
Speaker 2: to come to a compromise. And for me, it's got
Speaker 2: now of a situation where we've walked away from the
Speaker 2: coalition agreement twice. Now, how can you possibly expect the
Speaker 2: Liberal Party to entertain another term of David Little Proud
Speaker 2: leadership if it might happen again.
Speaker 1: You say you won't be ringing around to gain support
Speaker 1: for your challenge. So is this a legitimate challenge because
Speaker 1: your colleagues have reportedly said it's doomed to fail. Well,
Speaker 1: what do you say to that?
Speaker 2: That may be? So, the point of the exercise here
Speaker 2: is to make it loud and clear to my colleagues
Speaker 2: that if they're going to go down the road of
Speaker 2: standing as a separate entity as a National Party, many
Speaker 2: of them will not hold their seats. It's that simple. Now.
Speaker 2: The National Party has been around for one hundred odd years.
Speaker 2: It has served rural and regional Australia very well, and
Speaker 2: I'm just doing everything I can to make them reassess
Speaker 2: this commitment to run alone. I don't want to say
Speaker 2: and pulled down the blinds in the National Party party room.
Speaker 2: That would be an absolute tragedy.
Speaker 1: David llde Pratt has reportedly rejected peace talks with Susan
Speaker 1: Lee until the leadership spill is dowt with Could your
Speaker 1: decision actually have to lay the reunion that you're pushing
Speaker 1: for between the Nationals and the Liberals?
Speaker 2: Ah? Well, my counter to that, why wasn't that done
Speaker 2: way back then? Why wait till now? I mean, that's nonsense.
Speaker 2: You know that they both made it quite clear and
Speaker 2: some of the statements they'd made that it's not happening,
Speaker 2: and so forth. So again, I think everybody is starting
Speaker 2: to come to their senses and understand the ramifications of
Speaker 2: splitting the coalition agreement. This does not work well for
Speaker 2: the Liberal Party either, So we have a symbolotic relationship.
Speaker 2: We need one another. All of these egos and personalities,
Speaker 2: they need to be dealt with and we need to
Speaker 2: re establish this coalition agreement and move on.
Speaker 1: Coming up, as the coalition reached the point of no return, Colin,
Speaker 1: you want the coalition back together, but is there really
Speaker 1: a future for the coalition given how opposite your interests
Speaker 1: are and how divided the two parties seem to be.
Speaker 2: Again, I think this is one of the issues that
Speaker 2: needs to get dealt with, particularly in the Liberal Party,
Speaker 2: and this is why we've seen the rise of the
Speaker 2: One Nation group of people. People are sick to death
Speaker 2: of this work canceled culture that's invaded everything, and every
Speaker 2: decision that gets made it has to be politically correct
Speaker 2: and acceptable to those who continually get offended.
Speaker 1: How much of the chaos that's going on right now,
Speaker 1: how much of that is playing into the hands of
Speaker 1: One Nation and their rise in the polls.
Speaker 2: One nation is rising in the po We've all seen
Speaker 2: the polls. We're well aware of that. The right twink
Speaker 2: is now I e supposed I warned everybody of this
Speaker 2: repeatedly when they refuse to accommodate Barnaby Choyce and he
Speaker 2: eventually resigned. Do you think there are some other Nationals
Speaker 2: close to It's their choice.
Speaker 4: It's a very personal decision and I'm certainly not going
Speaker 4: to start you litigating it in public on their behalf. No,
Speaker 4: it's their choice, and then if they make it, they
Speaker 4: make it. If they don't understand both ways.
Speaker 2: And now we have the rise of one Nation as
Speaker 2: a result.
Speaker 4: Look, it's happening across the world. In fact, Australia's last.
Speaker 4: You've got Farage, You've got La penn in France, You've
Speaker 4: got Milano in Italy. You've got the AfD in Germany,
Speaker 4: which is which are crazy, crazy, dangerous? The Mega movement
Speaker 4: in the United States. We're actually last to this last
Speaker 4: of this form of new global politics.
Speaker 1: There rumors that some of your colleagues might actually defect
Speaker 1: the one nation. Are you among them? No questions and plans.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 1: One person who's reportedly delighted by the split is former
Speaker 1: Nationals leader Barnaby Droyces. Of course now, as you know
Speaker 1: and everyone else knows, part of one nation. Have you
Speaker 1: been chatting with him Batelely at all?
Speaker 2: I speak to Barnaby on a semi regular basis where
Speaker 2: good friends. You know. It's not a daily basis, but
Speaker 2: we probably speak once a week or something like that.
Speaker 2: I have not discussed any of these issues with Barnaby,
Speaker 2: nor he is with me.
Speaker 1: And finally, Colin, is your side of politics just making
Speaker 1: it too easy for the government right now?
Speaker 2: Most definitely, and you know this has to stop. We
Speaker 2: have to bury the hatchet, so to speak, shell all
Speaker 2: the egos and personalities former coalition, put our best team
Speaker 2: forward and move on. And that's on both sides of
Speaker 2: this argument, both the liberal side and the national side.
Speaker 1: Well, Colin Boyce, good luck on Monday, and thank you
Speaker 1: so much for your time.
Speaker 2: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: Also in the news, WA police has announce still been
Speaker 1: investigating an alleged attack on Monday's Invasion Day rallyan Perth
Speaker 1: as a potential terrorist attack. First Nations leaders have welcomed
Speaker 1: the news. Forensic teams that confirm the device was a
Speaker 1: fragment bomb packed with volatile chemicals designed to explode on impact.
Speaker 1: A thirty one year old man whose identity has been
Speaker 1: suppressed has been charged, and a Chinese investigative team is
Speaker 1: set to visit Australia to help in the search of
Speaker 1: a man accused of randomly attacking a baby with hot
Speaker 1: coffee in twenty twenty four. The man fled to his
Speaker 1: home country after the attack. China's ambassador to Australia says
Speaker 1: they will work with Queensland Police to help track down
Speaker 1: the thirty three year old. I'm Daniel James. You've been
Speaker 1: listening to seven AM. We'll be back tomorrow.