‘I’m Not Going to Die Wondering’: Nationals Leader Matt Canavan Bets His Political Life on Capricornia as One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and James Ashby Both Step Aside, But Vow to Fight for the Central Queensland Seat
- Nationals leader Matt Canavan will give up a safe Senate seat to chase Capricornia, a gamble his own party admits could cost it its leader.
- One Nation’s James Ashby, who lives in the electorate, has ruled himself out of preselection just hours after Pauline Hanson did the same.
- Ashby has made clear One Nation still believes it can win the seat and plans to pour “resources and people” into the campaign.
- Senior Nationals warn that a conservative civil war in Central Queensland could hand Anthony Albanese an easier path back to The Lodge.
In the coal towns, cattle stations and coastal suburbs of Central Queensland, a political brawl is brewing that could shape who governs Australia.
At its centre is one man willing to risk everything.
Nationals leader Matt Canavan has confirmed he will abandon the security of the Senate and contest the Lower House seat of Capricornia at the 2028 federal election.
By his own admission, it is a roll of the dice that could end his parliamentary career.
“I’m not going to die wondering,” he told the Courier Mail. “I may very well die politically, but I’m not going to die wondering.
I’ll give it my all.”
His announcement triggered a rapid chain reaction inside One Nation, the party many conservatives now view as both a potential ally and a dangerous rival.
On Monday, One Nation national director James Ashby declared he would not nominate for preselection, closing the door on months of speculation that he would take on Canavan in his own backyard.
Ashby lives in the electorate and had openly entertained the idea.
But in a statement first reported by News24, he said his role as the party’s national director was one he took seriously, and that he would instead help run the campaign on the ground.
He was emphatic that One Nation was not retreating. Ashby said he believed the party could win Capricornia and intended to throw resources and people behind a strong campaign.
His decision landed only hours after Pauline Hanson put her own name to rest.
“No, I’m not running in Capricornia,” the One Nation leader said, though she had been noticeably cagey at that point about Ashby’s intentions, noting the election was still more than a year away and declining to signal where either of them might stand.
The shake-up was set in motion last month when Michelle Landry, the long-serving Nationals MP for Capricornia, announced she would retire at the next federal poll.
Landry has won the seat at five consecutive elections and currently holds it on a margin of around five per cent. That is respectable, but far from bulletproof in an era of fractured voting and surging minor parties.
Canavan, who lives in Yeppoon and runs his electorate office in Rockhampton, had long been tipped to make the leap. Earlier this month he told News24 that if the party needed to hold one more seat in the Lower House, he would do it.
His position is unusual.
Canavan took the Nationals leadership in March despite sitting in the Senate, breaking with the convention that party leaders sit in the House of Representatives, where governments are made and unmade.
Winning Capricornia would solve that problem overnight. Losing it would leave the Nationals leaderless in Parliament.
Ashby, meanwhile, spent most of the past decade as Hanson’s chief of staff and is regarded as one of the sharpest operators in conservative politics. He told The Australian last month that plenty of supporters had urged him to stand, though he had given no firm answer.
Analysis: What This Means for Australia
On the surface, this is a contest for a single regional seat. In reality, it is a test of whether Australia’s right-of-centre forces can stop cannibalising each other.
Capricornia is no ordinary electorate. It sits at the heart of Queensland’s resources economy, with communities heavily tied to coal mining, agriculture and the export industries that underpin regional jobs.
Debates over energy policy, net zero and the future of mining are not abstract here. They decide whether families stay or leave.
That makes the seat fertile ground for One Nation, whose message on cost of living and resources jobs resonates strongly in the regions.
But every vote One Nation peels away from the Nationals is a vote that could, under preferential voting, complicate the Coalition’s numbers in the House.
Senior Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie made that point bluntly on ABC Radio National.
She acknowledged there was a “risk” in any Lower House contest in the current climate, but said Canavan had a “great proposition” after delivering for the community alongside Landry for years.
She then turned her fire on One Nation, noting the party had made “a big song and dance” about wanting to “fire the liar” and remove the Prime Minister.
“There’s only one way to remove Albanese as prime minister, and that is to win more seats than the Labor Party in the House of Representatives,” McKenzie said, warning that any effort spent targeting the Nationals or Liberals was “one less effort going into getting rid of the Labor Party”.
For voters, the stakes are tangible.
A drawn-out conservative turf war could dominate local politics, distracting from issues such as regional health services, infrastructure and housing crisis pressures that are biting in Rockhampton and beyond.
Political observers say the clash also reflects a wider national shift.
Minor parties have been steadily eroding the major parties’ primary vote, and figures from the Australian Electoral Commission in recent elections have shown preferences increasingly determining outcomes in seats once considered safe.
Seasoned campaign strategists believe Canavan’s personal profile gives him a significant advantage. He is a local, a high-profile advocate for the resources sector, and arguably the most recognisable Nationals figure in the region.
Yet insiders warn that name recognition cuts both ways.
A party leader running in a marginal-leaning seat becomes a target, and opponents will relish the chance to claim the biggest scalp of the election.
Analysts also note that Ashby’s decision to stay off the ballot may actually strengthen One Nation’s hand. Freed from the demands of being a candidate, the party’s chief organiser can focus entirely on building a ground game in his home turf.
Others suggest the decision could be a signal of pragmatism, leaving room for preference negotiations with the Coalition as the election draws closer.
What is certain is that Capricornia has become one of the seats to watch in 2028.
Canavan has staked his career on it. One Nation has promised to fight for it.
And Labor will be watching closely, hoping a split on the right delivers it an opportunity few expected.
For the people of Central Queensland, the next election just became far more than a routine trip to the ballot box.