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