Leading moderates in the Queensland Liberal National party have warned that any recriminations against MPs who supported abortion rights would “light the fuse” for a demerger push.

Three MPs – Tim Nicholls, Steve Minnikin and Jann Stuckey – used their conscience vote in parliament to support the Palaszczuk government’s abortion decriminalisation bill.

The LNP state party room allowed MPs a conscience vote, but the party’s formal policy is for abortion to be a criminal offence. Next month, the LNP state council is expected to consider a motion by party members to ban Nicholls, Minnikin and Stuckey from seeking re-election.

Guardian Australia understands Minnikin, a well-regarded Brisbane MP and the shadow minister for transport, has been chastised by parliamentary colleagues and told his political career is effectively over.

The abortion debate has exposed lingering concerns, particularly among moderate Liberals, resulting from the 2008 merger of the Queensland National and Liberal parties.

One senior moderate said the party would “lose Brisbane for a generation” if it took a hard conservative stance and disendorsed MPs who supported abortion rights.

“There has to be room for liberals in the LNP. Steve [Minnikin] is the only one left on Brisbane’s south side, and his seat would go to Labor, no question [if he was disendorsed].

“The party seems to be so caught up in picking up voters lost to Pauline Hanson and the Katters. It is just quickly becoming the National party.”

The federal MP Warren Entsch, who campaigned against the merger and has been a critic since, told Guardian Australia he thought the parties “work very well in a coalition” but that one party could not represent the diversity of views among members.

Entsch, whose seat runs from Cairns to Cape York, said he was “told to show cause [by the party] because of my stand on gay marriage”.

He said any attempt to disendorse Nicholls, Minnikin or Stuckey would be “absolutely disgraceful”.

“It may well light the fuse [for a demerger],” Entsch said. “I for one would be very vocal.

“It was a conscience vote. Whether you agree with it or not is not the point, they had the courage to do it and they knew it was not going to be popular. People are demanding we have more conviction politicians.

“I would put money on there being more MPs that shared the same view [on abortion] who didn’t have the courage to express that view because they were fearful of punishment form the hierarchy.”

The LNP deputy leader, Tim Mander, told reporters on Friday it would be “totally inappropriate” to punish MPs who exercised a sanctioned conscience vote.

“We need to take a deep breath and consider our approach to this issue in the future but, in my opinion, it is not appropriate to take some sort of retribution against people who exercise their conscience,” Mander said.



The LNP state council will meet in Bundaberg next month.

The Courier-Mail reported on Saturday that the party president, Gary Spence, wrote to members saying he expected “robust discussion about party values, policy and how they are implemented by our parliamentary teams” at the meeting.



“It has been long-standing policy of the LNP, and the majority of our members, that the abortion laws in Queensland were fair and did not need changing,” Spence wrote. “I could not be more disappointed that three of our MPs voted in the parliament on Wednesday night in a way that was contrary to these long-established values.”