Michelle Landry announces retirement, opening path for Matt Canavan to switch to lower house

The path has opened for Nationals leader Matt Canavan to move to the House of Representatives by contesting the Queensland seat of Capricornia at the 2028 election.

This follows Nationals MP Michelle Landry’s announcement on Friday that she would retire at the next election.

Landry and Canavan appeared at a joint press conference in Rockhampton, Queensland. Canavan did not announce his bid, but has previously made it clear he would be open to a move from the Senate if there was a lower house vacancy. He lives in Capricornia.

Canavan said Landry had been a “super woman for delivery”. She is currently the whip for the Nationals.

“Michelle gets into more fights than Mike Tyson down there in Canberra,” told reporters.

Canavan has been leader since March of this year, when former leader David Littleproud stepped down.

If he remained in the Senate, Canavan would be in a precarious position at the election because he would be number two on the Liberal National Party Queensland ticket, leaving him under serious threat given One Nation’s high polling.

Landry has been the member for Capricornia since 2013, holding the seat for five terms.

Rejecting rumours she had been pushed to leave the seat, she said she had not had any pressure from Canavan. But she said some people in One Nation “think they can tell me what to do. Well they can’t tell me what to do. This is something I have taken quite a while to consider.”

Landry said one reason she decided to retire was the “enormous” amount of travel involved in the job.

“In an electorate like this, you leave home at half-past eight on a Sunday, you get into Canberra at five or six on Sunday evening. And it’s a large electorate, over 91,000 square kilometres, so you’re never home. I want to spend more time with my family, I want to walk on the beach, that might be something novel to do.”

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has also left open the prospect of seeking to move from the Senate to the House. It has been speculated Capricornia is one of several possible seats she might choose to run in.