Senator for Queensland Matt Canavan has been elected as the new leader of the National Party, after David Littleproud’s resignation.
Senator Canavan defeated Bridget McKenzie and former deputy Kevin Hogan.
Victorian MP Darren Chester was selected as deputy leader, with Senator McKenzie remaining the party’s Senate leader.
At the press conference to announce his new position, Senator Canavan called for “more Australian farming, more Australian manufacturing, more Australian jobs.
“We need to have more Australian everything.
“We need to manifest a hyper-Australia. We need to go hyper-Australia for our country.
“We need more Australian babies. We need more Australian humour. More Australian jokes. We need more Australian barbecues – sometimes fuelled by fossil fuels. We need more Australian everything.”
Senator Canavan lives in Yeppoon, grew up in Logan, and studied economics at the University of Queensland.
He was a former Productivity Commission Director and worked for Barnaby Joyce as his Chief-of-Staff ahead of the 2010 election.
He was Minister for Northern Australia in 2016, and later that year became Minister for Resources until his position as Deputy Leader of The Nationals in the Senate in 2020.
Darren Chester has been the Federal Member for Gippsland since 2008.
He is a former newspaper and television journalist, previously ran his own marketing business, and was executive officer of a regional advocacy group.
