New South Wales Nationals Leader Elected

ABC NEWS (Australia)

It's been Another eventful day on Macquarie Street. The New South Wales Nationals have a new leader. The Coffs Harbour MP Gurmesh Singh has been elected unopposed. He's promising to work with the Liberals to resolve their differences over the net zero target. But it's unclear whom he'll be dealing with as Mark Speakman's colleagues consider replacing him as leader.

Transcript

00:00Coalition MPs had leadership on their minds as they arrived at Parliament.

00:06The Nationals contest was out in the open.

00:09You'll all know the result in a couple of hours' time.

00:12The Liberals in the background, with Mark Speakman's future in the balance.

00:16I think the party room is behind him and we've got a job ahead of us to hold Labour to account.

00:21Mark has my full support and I think he'll be the leader for the rest of this week

00:26and lead us to the next election.

00:29The member for Epping too pushed for time to offer her backing.

00:34The member for Ride keeping his options open.

00:37Well I'm here for Ride, so whoever's for Ride, I'm for them.

00:41The question over the Nationals' leadership was resolved quickly.

00:44Coffs Harbour MP and former blueberry farmer Gurmesh Singh elected unopposed.

00:48It's a tremendous honour.

00:50Following the sudden resignation of Dougal Saunders.

00:53Great media performer. I do like the policy side of things a lot more.

00:57Policy priority number one will be energy.

01:00Many of his MPs want to formally abandon Net Zero like their colleagues in Canberra.

01:05Three and a half hours in, I won't rule anything in or out.

01:07Along with our coalition partners in the Liberal Party, we will come up with a consolidated plan to take to the next election.

01:13The Liberals held their own meeting today to discuss Net Zero and there was resounding support for sticking with the 2050 target.

01:20But there was no press conference from Mark Speakman who was keen to avoid questions over the leadership which are only growing louder.

01:27Who's going to be looking at now?

01:29You?

01:31Realisation.

01:33We are going to go off the...

01:37The!

01:38You?

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