Queensland senator Matt Canavan has won the vote to become the next leader of the National Party after David Littleproud’s surprise resignation on Tuesday. 

Party members elected Victorian MP Darren Chester as deputy leader, a party official announced. 

Former deputy leader Kevin Hogan and Senator Bridget McKenzie unsuccessfully contested the leadership.

‘Canavan is good but needs to learn to play the team game,’ Daily Mail political editor Peter van Onselen said. 

‘He has built his name as the guy sticking it to the Libs and quitting the frontbench. Unless he honestly thinks quitting the Coalition is a good idea, he has to change.’  

Canavan was elected senator in 2014 and was a minister in Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison’s governments. A trained economist, Canavan previously worked as Barnaby Joyce’s chief-of-staff when he was Agriculture Minister. 

He now goes up against his former mentor, who defected to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation earlier this year, as the party surges in the polls – threatening the future of the Nationals. 

‘Pauline Hanson won’t fear Matt Canavan, and she’ll have Barnaby Joyce to help explain him to her,’ van Onselen said. 

Nationals Senator Matt Canavan is the party’s new leader  

David Littleproud resigned on Tuesday in an emotional press conference where he said he was too ‘buggered’ to continue 

‘But Canavan will likely try and match much of the populism One Nation spruiks.’ 

Canavan is a rare party leader from the Senate. Traditionally, leaders sit in the House of Representatives.

In Canberra on Tuesday, Littleproud fought back tears as he told reporters he was exhausted after years in the top job and presiding over two traumatic splits in the Coalition.  

‘I’m buggered and I’ve had enough,’ he said. 

Littleproud will stay in Parliament and plans to recontest his Queensland seat of Maranoa, one of the safest electorates in the country, which he has held since 2016. 

He also left open the possibility of returning to the Coalition frontbench under the party’s new leadership.

Van Onselen said: ‘Angus Taylor will be hoping that Canavan can rethink his approach to the Coalition and become constructive rather than destructive. 

‘That would mean accepting that the Nationals are the junior partner. 

‘But Canavan has a number of red lines, including opposing net zero with a zealotry that won’t help Liberals win back urban electorates.’

Canavan is yet to address the media.  

More to come…