Federal Nationals MP Michelle Landry announced Friday she will retire from parliament at the 2028 election, vacating the north Queensland seat of Capricornia and setting up a preselection contest that party insiders widely expect Nationals leader Matt Canavan to enter from the Senate.
Landry, who has held Capricornia since 2013, told reporters in Rockhampton that two more terms felt like the right limit. She said she expected the Nationals preselection to begin before the end of 2026, sooner rather than later, and that multiple colleagues had already discussed running.
Why the timing matters
Canavan, who lives in the electorate and leads the Nationals in the upper house, did not confirm his candidacy on Friday but praised Landry as leaving “huge shoes to fill.” Moving from the Senate to the House of Representatives would let him seek a ministry in a future Coalition government without relying on a casual vacancy in Capricornia.
Capricornia takes in Rockhampton, Gladstone and coal-and-beef country along the central Queensland coast. The seat has swung between Labor and the Nationals at tight margins, making candidate selection a high-stakes exercise for a party trying to hold regional Queensland while Labor governs federally.
Reaction inside the Coalition
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton welcomed Landry’s service but declined to endorse a successor. Liberal strategists said a Canavan switch could stabilise the Nationals’ leadership lineup by placing a proven commodity in a winnable lower-house seat, though it would trigger a Senate casual vacancy process that could take months.
Queensland Labor MPs argued the retirement shows fatigue in the Coalition’s regional bench after a bruising week of energy-policy attacks over Snowy Hydro 2.0 cost blowouts. Nationals officials countered that Landry’s decision was personal and unrelated to the energy debate dominating Canberra.
What comes next
The Nationals federal council will set preselection rules for Capricornia, including whether local branches or the federal executive hold the final vote. Landry said she would remain active in the electorate until 2028, focusing on defence industry jobs around Shoalwater Bay and flood-resilience funding for Rockhampton.
If Canavan runs and wins, the Queensland parliament would need to fill his Senate spot, likely through a joint sitting of state MPs. That sequence could reshape committee assignments in both chambers during the final two years of the Albanese government’s term.
For voters in Capricornia, the immediate change is minimal: Landry stays on the crossbench of government offices in Canberra while local staff continue constituency work. The political drama will peak when preselection nominees declare and when, or if, Canavan formally resigns his Senate seat to contest the House.