Key events
Krishani Dhanji
Andrew Bragg says Liberal party risks looking like a ‘Days of Our Lives’ episode
Liberal frontbencher and shadow minister for deregulation, Andrew Bragg, says the opposition needs to come up with serious policy alternatives, as speculation grows over when Angus Taylor will attempt to roll leader Sussan Ley.
Bragg was asked if Ley is still the right person to lead the party, and seemed to dodge the question, just saying that the Liberals are a “serious party”. He was then asked point blank he if supports Ley, Bragg says “of course”.
He then warned:
People will mark us down if we appear more of a Days of Our Lives episode than a policy offering machine.
Bragg and Ley have this morning announced a “deregulation agenda”, which he says will cut red tape:
We are going to cut a large chunk of that red tape through a new target which means there will few fewer regulations, fewer laws, and it means that bus can get on with creating well and employing people rather than filling Canberra’s forms.
Dan Tehan says ‘no reason’ good faith negotiations can’t reform Coalition this week
Dan Tehan, the shadow minister for energy, said senior leaders from the Nationals and the Liberal party need to meet in Canberra this week and work through their differences amid a split in the Coalition last month.
Tehan spoke to RN Breakfast a day before lawmakers are set to return for the next parliament.
I think we need to quietly get senior people together and work through how we can get the Coalition back together. And that should be done behind closed doors, and there needs to be a meeting from both sides to say, “let’s put aside what has happened and let’s focus on what we need to do to reform the Coalition”.
There’s no reason, if everyone enters into this in good faith, that we can’t achieve that. And I think that should be an absolute focus this week.
Ben Smee
Who is Colin Boyce?
When the Taroom cattle farmer Colin Boyce was elected to the Queensland parliament in 2017, his strongest opposition came from One Nation.
Three years later, Boyce’s plain-spoken first term as a Liberal National party backbencher – which included crossing the floor on a mining rehabilitation bill and a climate speech that claimed we should “celebrate” global heating – had won over One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.
This week Boyce announced a tilt at the Nationals leadership, claiming he was “furious” at the implosion of the Coalition. He said events in Canberra had left the Nationals “the nothing party”.
Read more here:
David Littleproud may face spill motion today
The fallout from the Coalition’s latest spectacular split will come to a head with a Nationals backbencher moving to skewer David Littleproud’s leadership, AAP reports.
Queensland MP Colin Boyce will attempt to trigger a spill motion against the Nationals leader on Monday as politicians descend on Canberra for the return of federal parliament. Several Nationals members expect the motion will fail to trigger a vote on Littleproud’s leadership as it will need the backing of a colleague in the party room.
Boyce previously said he would put himself forward for the leadership and urge the Coalition to reunite, warning the party faced “going over the political cliff” otherwise.
Speculation has swirled over whether Sussan Ley’s job is also under threat, despite West Australian backbencher Andrew Hastie ruling himself out of contention on Friday. His decision could pave the way for conservative rival Angus Taylor, who has not ruled out vying for the opposition’s top job despite sitting on the frontbench.
‘Gunshot’ heard shortly after Porepunkah shooting focus of renewed police search for Dezi Freeman
Victoria police said the renewed search for Dezi Freeman is based on intelligence in “relation to a gunshot heard a short time after the fatal incident at Freeman’s Rayner Track property”.
The new search is scheduled to go for five days, and will focus on an area of Mount Buffalo national park near a similar search that took place in December, which encompassed thick bush and heavy terrain. Police said detectives have held a range of firearms tests in the vicinity as part of the inquiries.
There is nothing to indicate that Freeman is being aided by a specific person, but police say that remains a possibility. Adam Tilley, a detective inspector with a taskforce focused on finding the man, said in a statement:
It remains our number one priority to locate Freeman and the extensive and systematic searches conducted over the past five months are testament to this.
The same three possibilities remain open to us – Freeman is either dead, being harboured, or has gotten out from the area and surviving alone. At this time there is no intelligence to move us away from these possibilities or to make any one the more likely scenario, so we have to keep an open mind.
There is no doubt that everyone involved wants an answer and I want to reaffirm that Victoria Police remains committed to doing everything we can to locate Desmond Freeman and get that answer.
Good morning
Good morning, and welcome to Monday. Nick Visser here to take you through the day’s news. Here’s what’s on deck to start the week:
Victoria police will begin a renewed search for fugitive Dezi Freeman in the Mount Buffalo national park. More than 100 police and volunteers will hunt for the man near an area searched in December, more than five months after two officers were fatally shot at Freeman’s property in Porepunkah. Police said the new five-day search is based on “intelligence derived from information police obtained in relation to a gunshot heard a short time after the fatal incident at Freeman’s Rayner Track property” in August.
A Queensland MP will attempt to trigger a spill motion against Nationals leader David Littleproud today as politicians return to Canberra for the next parliament sitting. Several Nationals members expect the motion will fail to trigger a vote on Littleproud’s leadership as it will need the backing of a colleague in the party room.
Stick with us.
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