Canavan or Collapse: The Final Choice for the Nats
Nation First delves into the National Party's pending leadership contest.
Dear friend,
The National Party is careening towards the edge of a cliff—and David Littleproud’s the one driving the Kingswood, holding the map, and about to steer them all straight over it.
After another disastrous election and a tidal wave of voter betrayal, the party is in revolt. And thank goodness for that. Because unless something changes fast, the Nationals are finished. There is, however, a glimmer of hope—and it comes in the form of Queensland Senator Matt Canavan.
David Littleproud has led the Nationals into chaos, losing seats, members, and the party’s direction.
Queensland Senator Matt Canavan is challenging him to restore conservative values and fight for the party’s base.
Littleproud backed net zero, flirted with supporting the Voice, and let key colleagues walk out or be sidelined.
Canavan has stood firm for coal, manufacturing, regional jobs, and traditional values, with a bold plan to rebuild the country.
Monday’s leadership vote is a fight between submission and strength—and the party’s future hangs in the balance.
CALL TO ACTION: If you want to let Nationals MPs and Senators know that Matthew Canavan is your choice for leader, go to https://BackMatt.com and sign the form to tell the Nats to vote him in as their party leader!
Tomorrow, Canavan will challenge Littleproud for the leadership. It’s not just a contest between two politicians. It’s a battle for the soul of the party. On one side: weakness, appeasement, and submission to the Liberal machine. On the other hand, strength, conviction, and a return to true conservative values.
Let’s not mince words: the aptronymic David Littleproud has failed.
Under his leadership, the Nationals have suffered their worst public identity crisis in decades. The party’s deputy leader lost her Senate seat. Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has defected from the Nationals to the Liberals just days after the election, completely blindsiding her colleagues. The Nationals failed to capture target seats like Bendigo and Bullwinkel. And Calare, which they were desperate to reclaim, has remained pretty firmly with their former MP turned independent, Andrew Gee. The party has also likely lost its New South Wales Senator, Perin Davey, at the election. With her tenure up at the end of June, combined with the defection of Senator Price, the Nationals will lose their major party status in the Senate.
That’s a disaster. And yet Littleproud was living in some sort of political fantasy land on election day when he texted his colleagues to boast about how they had “executed the strategy to perfection” and that they “can be proud of a faultless campaign”.
“Savour the day you have earned it,” the completely deluded message ended.
Rue the day more like it.
Even more deluded was the post-election claim that the Nationals had run a “flawless campaign”. Actually, it’s bordering on dereliction.
I guess one could say it was “flawless” in the sense that the strategy articulated to other Nationals was for the party to be quiet and let the Liberals do their thing to win over city seats. He maintained great discipline to that “quiet” approach because I hardly heard or saw Littleproud during the entire campaign. I’m told he spent most of his time in the seats of Bullwinkel and Calare, where the party didn’t even come close to winning. Bendigo, which nearly fell to the Nationals, was mostly the work of Senator Bridget McKenzie and a sterling local candidate.
Inside the party, frustration is erupting. Flynn MP Colin Boyce has already openly called for Littleproud’s resignation. Other Nationals MPs have complained that Littleproud was too close to the Liberals, who basically dominated him. A sign of this was Littleproud saying he didn’t need to bother with a Coalition agreement if the Liberals and Nationals won the election. There are also reports of Littleproud losing his temper with colleagues and staff. It’s not just that the party has lost ground—it’s lost unity.
In his own seat of Maranoa, Littleproud copped a near 3 per cent swing against him. But at least the folks in Maranoa know Littleproud. The same can’t be said outside the electorate, though. A poll taken last year even showed that nearly 40 per cent of the country had no idea who Littleproud actually was. I strongly suspect that number was inflated due to the fact that they were asked if they knew the name. If the average punter was shown a photo of Littleproud and asked who it was, they would not immediately leap to “future Deputy Prime Minister”.
Littleproud is a former bank Johnny, who still radiates the low-energy, paper-shuffling aura of that particular profession. No one expects him to set the world on fire because, unfortunately, leadership just isn’t in his DNA. He built next to no sound relationship with Senator Price and then wondered why she defected. In fact, the only professional relationship between them, I’m informed, was one underpinned by jealousy because Price had more of a profile than he. Likewise, Andrew Gee was known to have itchy feet for some time now, having threatened to leave the party when they were in government under Scott Morrison. Back then, he was cuddled and placated by Barnaby Joyce and brought back into the tent. Littleproud neglected him, and so off he went.
Frustration with Littleproud’s leadership, at least in part, led to respected, hardworking, and intelligent Nationals MPs Keith Pitt and David Gillespie exiting Parliament. Both of them were benched by Littleproud despite the fact that they had tremendous ministerial experience, a lot of brains, and a fair bit of get-up-and-go. But Littleproud’s negligence led to them both getting up and going… from the party, from the parliament, and from politics altogether.
I’ve seen Littleproud’s “leadership” firsthand. During the COVID years, when our freedoms were shredded and Australians were punished for refusing to comply with tyranny, I was in the Australian Parliament, standing up and speaking out against lockdowns, mask mandates, and ‘no jab, no job’ policies. And didn’t the media go off! They’d do the usual rounds looking for someone within the Liberal or National to attack, and Littleproud always willingly obliged. But not before he would call me to apologise in advance for publicly throwing me under the bus. The usual call would go along the lines of “Mate, we’re getting questions about your comments, and you know, we’ve got to go through the motions.” That was his pattern. Pretending to hand-wring against me for the cameras and press gallery.
Another contact told me they’d been pushing Littleproud, as a then Morrison Government Minister, to fight for a particular policy proposal when it came to Cabinet. Littleproud assured them he would and, after said Cabinet meeting, told them he did go into bat for the proposal. However, a simple call to another Cabinet Minister revealed that Littleproud hadn’t said a word about the matter. Former Nationals Cabinet Ministers confirm that when there was a blow-up in Cabinet on a policy matter between the Nationals and Liberals, Littleproud was largely missing in action.
Policy-wise, Littleproud’s support for net zero has been a knife to the heart of regional Australia. Most country folks know that net zero is a Trojan horse for destroying the industries that power our nation—coal, farming, freight—which is everything the bush relies on. And it’s being sacrificed on the altar of climate hysteria. Littleproud is one of the high priests holding the sacrificial dagger, having signed onto that betrayal of the bush.
Littleproud’s misguided support for net zero has led at least two Nationals MPs—Colin Boyce and Llew O’Brien—to already publicly declare that they’re voting against him come the spill on Monday.
O’Brien released a statement on Facebook saying:
… I am supporting Matt Canavan because he is also an exceptional candidate for leadership—and because, like me, he recognises that the targets under the Paris Agreement are not in Australia’s national interest.
Labor’s plan for an 82% renewable energy grid is already proving to be unreliable, unaffordable, and incapable of supporting a modern industrial economy. When every segment of the energy market—generation, transmission, components, and even the consumers—must be propped up with taxpayer subsidies, and prices are still among the highest in the world, the failure of the government’s energy policy is plain to see.
But it isn’t just net zero where Littleproud has run counter to both his constituency and common sense.
Nationals sources told me long ago that Littleproud had to be dragged into opposing the Indigenous Voice to Parliament proposal, which 60% of Australians eventually rejected at a referendum. In rural and regional areas, opposition to the Voice ran as high as almost 85%. Likewise, Littleproud initially made noises in favour of the censorious and dystopian Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill—a piece of legislation opposed by many and which was ultimately blocked in the Senate. These aren’t minor missteps; they’re also glaring failures of leadership and political nous. Littleproud’s inability to take a firm stand on critical issues shows he’s more concerned with keeping his head down than fighting for the people he’s supposed to represent.
Meanwhile, Senator Matt Canavan is just about always fighting. Loudly. Proudly. Fearlessly.
CALL TO ACTION: If you want to let Nationals MPs and Senators know that Matthew Canavan is your choice for leader, go to https://BackMatt.com and sign the form to tell the Nats to vote him in as their party leader!
He has fought net zero from the start, not because it was politically convenient to do so, but because it is right to oppose it. He’s defended Australia’s coal industry and coal miners. He’s fought for farmers, graziers, truckies, and fishermen. He’s stood up for the unborn, defended traditional marriage, spoken out for religious freedom, and slammed the cancel culture brigade. He didn’t bow to the COVID tyrants. He hasn’t run from the culture war. And he sure as hell hasn’t sold out his base.
Canavan gets it. There’s a contingent of blue-collar conservative voters out there, and no major party is fighting for them. He points out that the people the Nationals represent shower after work, not before it. They’re the ones holding this country together—and they’ve been abandoned by the political class.
While others talk about the “good of the party,” Canavan has made clear his focus is on the national interest.
“Our plan should be how to save the country, not save the party,” he said.
That’s leadership. That’s courage. That’s conviction.
And he’s not just offering slogans—he’s already written the roadmap. Matt Canavan spearheaded the Nationals’ Manufacturing 2035 policy paper—a bold, unapologetic plan to rebuild Australia's industrial base and deliver 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. It calls for scrapping net zero, using our energy resources—coal, gas, and nuclear—restoring domestic supply chains, establishing regional manufacturing hubs in places like Gladstone and Newcastle, and reasserting government procurement rules that favour Australian-made.
It was a working-class blueprint, written by a conviction conservative with both a heart and a mind for blue-collar Australians.
Regarding his leadership challenge, Canavan frames it, quite rightly, as a battle for the Nationals’ constituency:
I am running for the leadership of the Nationals party so that we fight again for the farmers, miners, factory workers and all who work so hard for our country… People are working harder for less and we will not have a fighting chance to change that unless we fight.
He’s offered an entire governing agenda—
Scrap net zero
Rebuild sovereign industry
Push for housing and regional development
Support families with income splitting and tax reform
Promote population growth and national resilience
“Our nation is in decline and we risk passing on a poorer nation to our children,” Canavan warned. “I believe that the only way to avoid this is to have a Liberal-National Coalition that not just wins elections but has the policy mandate for Australia to flourish again.”
“This debate is not about protecting his (Littleproud’s) job or mine. This is about fighting for the jobs and livelihoods of the many people we represent.”
Public commentators and conservatives across the country are rallying to Canavan’s cause. Adam Creighton, economics editor and columnist at The Australian, praised him as “a proven retail politician and easily one of the best economic minds in parliament. Politics needs more people of his calibre.” Rowan Dean, editor of The Spectator Australia and host of Sky’s Outsiders, called it “FANTASTIC NEWS… A Taylor-Canavan-Price Coalition with Alex Antic in the wings will be incredible!” And Lyle Shelton, Family First National Director, stated, “Matt Canavan is running for the Nationals leadership on Family First policies—scrapping net zero and income splitting to strengthen families. The cause is the cause!”
This is more than a leadership bid. It’s the reawakening of conservative Australia. The Nationals now stand at the crossroads of irrelevance and revival.
On Monday, the Nationals have a choice:
Keep drifting toward irrelevance under David Littleproud...
Or rise up with a fighter like Matt Canavan.
The time for weak leadership is over.
It’s time to fight.
It’s time for Canavan.
CALL TO ACTION: If you want to let Nationals MPs and Senators know that Matthew Canavan is your choice for leader, go to https://BackMatt.com and sign the form to tell the Nats to vote him in as their party leader!
Until next time, God bless you, your family and nation.
Take care,
George Christensen
George Christensen is a former Australian politician, a Christian, freedom lover, conservative, blogger, podcaster, journalist and theologian. He has been feted by the Epoch Times as a “champion of human rights” and his writings have been praised by Infowars’ Alex Jones as “excellent and informative”.
George believes Nation First will be an essential part of the ongoing fight for freedom:
“The time is now for every proud patriot to step to the fore and fight for our freedom, sovereignty and way of life. Information is a key tool in any battle and the Nation First newsletter will be a valuable tool in the battle for the future of the West.”
— George Christensen.
Find more about George at his www.georgechristensen.com.au website.
I hate these group emails but have done this one. Plus I added a few polite, but not so friendly, words about how the Nationals are failing miserably under Littleproud.
Quite frankly, he has little to be proud of! And he reminds me somewhat of Malcolm Turnbull - a sheep in wolves clothing!
Matt Canavan would be one of the handful of people in Australian politics that really cares about the country. If he wins the leadership and survives being undermined by NP pretenders, the Nationals could potentially become the senior partner in the Coalition.