This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The Liberal National party has blocked a Queensland MP from standing for his seat at the next state election.



The party’s state executive rejected an application from the former Queensland housing minister Dr Bruce Flegg, who has held the seat of Moggill in Brisbane’s western suburbs for the past 10 years, to contest preselection for the 2015 poll.

“State Executive ... resolved that the application of Bruce Flegg MP may not proceed to preselection,” the LNP said in a statement, without explaining why.

Flegg took to Twitter shortly after the decision to express his views. “LNP HQ have barred me from standing for preselection for Moggill after a decade of loyal service,” he posted.

A second tweet said: “LNP membership of Moggill have been denied the right to choose their representative.”

Meanwhile, the embattled former minister Ros Bates of Mudgeeraba and the Redlands MP Peter Dowling, who created international headlines after he was caught plonking his penis in a glass of wine, were allowed to vie for preselection.



“Under the terms of the LNP Constitution, the State Executive is empowered to determine whether or not applications for the party’s endorsement should proceed to preselection,” the LNP statement read.

“The LNP is a democratic party and, unlike the Labor party, these decisions are made by office bearers from all over Queensland who are elected by party members. The preselection of LNP candidates is determined by a vote of local party members.”

The party said it would announce endorsed candidates in the three seats, and others, in due course.

Flegg was the housing minister until November 2012 when he was forced to resign after failing to declare all contact he had with his lobbyist son.

He also created a furore after secretly recording his colleagues during a failed attempt to persuade him to retire so Campbell Newman could take his safe conservative seat in Brisbane’s west before the last election.

Speculation is already mounting that Newman, now the premier, will move into Moggill, particularly since his Labor rival in Ashgrove, Kate Jones, announced she would be standing again in 2015. But Newman has maintained he will stay put.

Bates resigned as IT and arts minister in February 2013, citing health and family reasons. She had spent the previous months dogged by allegations of nepotism involving her son, her contact with lobbyists and amount of leave she had taken.

And in August 2013, Peter Dowling quit as chair of parliament’s ethics committee after he was caught sending his lover a picture of his penis in a glass of red wine.