“Shock, awe and excitement” greeted the news the Queensland Coalition Senate ticket had been completely rewritten, with both sitting senators, Ian Macdonald and Barry O’Sullivan, losing their top Senate ticket positions.



O’Sullivan, the lead Nationals-aligned senator in Queensland, lost by just one vote, according to LNP sources in the room. Having not nominated for any other position, the result means O’Sullivan will vacate the Senate next year.



His challenger, Susan McDonald, is well known in the state’s beef circles, with her father, Don, a former party president, and has built a reputation as a “solid and reliable” voice for regional communities.

O’Sullivan, who was first elected in 2014, had been under threat since 2016, but was thought to have successfully fought off McDonald, after highlighting his role in establishing the banking royal commission and drought funding.

“As of yesterday, we were told he had the numbers, so this is a big surprise,” one LNP source said. Talking about preselections is banned under party rules, so all who spoke did so under the condition of anonymity.

“We thought he was home and hosed, but I think it shows the shift in this; how the members are looking for something other than what their party was delivering.”



Macdonald, the father of the Senate, a term given to the longest-serving senator, lost the top spot to Paul Scarr, a Brisbane mining executive known as an LNP moderate, a move that was all but set in stone in the weeks leading up to the vote. Macdonald eventually won the fourth round, which was described as “winnable, with an emphasis on the quotation marks”.



Scarr had previously gained notice fighting back against more conservative elements in the party on issues such as suspending migration from Islamic nations.

Sources said he had impressed the council with his “well reasoned and eloquent” speeches and, after years of stonewalling and “backward” policy discussion being put forward from Queensland, was seen as helping to pull the branch into the future.

“He’s an excellent speaker and, more importantly, he has ideas to bring to the table,” one LNP source said.

“Queensland has had a bit of a reputation of being held back by dinosaurs, and I think this is the membership rewriting the party, looking to the future.

“It wasn’t unexpected – but replacing Macdonald with someone so comparatively progressive as Paul, I think has come as a shock.

“Shock, awe and excitement, with emphasis on the shock.”



Macdonald, who had been told at his previous preselection that it was “his last go round”, given he would be 80 at the end of another six-year term, had attempted to trade on his regional status as the only senator in north Queensland and had taken the unusual step of running in every position on the ticket.

In an attempt to fight off an insurgency from minor conservative parties, including One Nation and Katter’s Australian party, the Nationals traded one of their spots on the ticket for the second position, ensuring a winnable position.

That left the Liberal-aligned senators battling for the first, third and fourth positions as the “winnable” spots, with Macdonald, a proclaimed “proud Liberal” also running as the only candidate in the fifth position, which was earmarked as a Nationals-aligned spot.



Macdonald lost the third position to Gerard Rennick, a finance executive who landed at the bottom of the last preselection, winning against Teresa Harding, and Theresa Craig, both of whom were considered strong challengers, as the LNP seeks to address its gender imbalance.

Third is considered the last almost certainty on the ticket, with fourth, where Macdonald sits, described as “a long shot –a very, very long shot, in this electoral climate”.

The last time the LNP won four senators was in 2004, before the official merger between the Liberals and Nationals in Queensland.



“But hey, stranger things have happened,” an LNP source said.



Brad Carswell and Nicole Tobin rounded out the ticket in what was described as “no man’s land”.

