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Queensland senator Gerard Rennick has quit the Liberal National Party to form his own party ahead of the upcoming federal election, a move that could split right-wing support in the state.
Mr Renick, who narrowly lost preselection for the LNP’s third Queensland Senate seat earlier this year, said tonight he did not want to spend his final months in the Senate “dangling in the breeze like a corpse”.
Gerard Rennick is an outspoken member of the Queensland Liberal National Party.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Instead, he plans to create the Gerard Renick People’s Party to contest next May’s election and use his Senate position to push for debate on economic issues ranging from the tax system to child care.
He hopes to start the party registration process on Monday so voters can cast their votes on the Senate ballot.
The move reduces the number of Coalition senators to 30 and increases the number of cross-party senators to 10.
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He is the second major party senator to resign from his party post this year. Labor’s Fatima Payman quits government to join crossbench.
Mr Renick said his move was not directed at Liberal leader Peter Dutton but was his way of raising “people’s livelihood” issues that needed to be debated publicly.
“How long I’m going to continue to serve in the Senate, who knows. I’d rather use that time to discuss really important issues rather than just play a game of marbles,” he told the newspaper on Sunday night.
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