Party Leadership

Hon Cr Lawrence Springborg AM
LNP President

Lawrence was born in 1968 and is a fourth generation Queenslander. With Linda, his wife of 31 years, the couple brought up four children on their farm in southern Queensland.

He became a party member at the age of 16 and at the age of 21 was elected as the youngest ever Member of the Queensland Parliament. Lawrence helped forge the LNP in 2008 from the state Nationals and Liberals and served as the party’s founding parliamentary leader. He was honoured with the inaugural life membership of the LNP; and has been recognised by the party’s future leaders with an honorary life membership of the YLNP.

Lawrence believes in hard work, reward for effort, the primacy of the individual, and efficient effective government. His ability to drive culture change, with a leadership style that values and empowers the individual, was demonstrated with his reform of the $13 billion Queensland Health portfolio when he served as Health Minister 2012-2015.

He has a passion for the LNP: its members and values. Lawrence has dedicated almost his entire adult life to serving Queenslanders and representing our party’s members and values through a multitude of positions including parliamentary leader, party trustee, Minister, and as a local MP.

Lawrence remembers and values how the LNP was founded by the individual votes of our rank-and-file membership. Lawrence believes the party’s executive and administration exists to serve the membership. He is determined to re-empower the membership because he knows the critical role each of us plays in every aspect of the party.

Lawrence is currently the Mayor of Goondiwindi Regional Council, and recently became a Member of the Order of Australia. He has a 37-year unbroken membership of the party and maintains his grassroots involvement with his local LNP branch.

Doug Hawkes
LNP Metropolitan Vice President

Doug and his wife Mary have three school-aged children, and have lived on the northside of Brisbane for the last 20 years. Prior to that, they lived and worked in Western Australia for several years. Both are Queenslanders, doing some (all in Mary’s case) of their growing up in North Queensland, and love returning to that part of the State whenever they can.

Doug has been an Engineer for almost 30 years and has owned and operated his own engineering business since 2000, with operations in Queensland and Western Australia. As well as running his business, he spends time contributing to Australian Standards Committees and has served on Boards and Management Committees of industry and community not-for-profit organisations. It is from this family and small business perspective that he wants to help the LNP be the best it can be such that poor Labor governments are replaced by good LNP governments, at all levels.

As an LNP member, Doug has undertaken to bring teams together, to work on common goals and to maintain focus on what matters. He has been an SEC and FDC Executive member, spent time on several election campaign committees and teams, been an SEC Chair, and a Metro North Region Vice-Chair and Chair, prior to becoming Metropolitan Vice President.

Like many members, he has experienced the elation of winning seats and elections, and the absolute devastation of losing them. The background of campaigning in marginal seats and holding a Region Chair position gives great insight to the on-the-ground matters affecting members, candidates, and campaigns. As a member of State Executive, Doug is passionate about continuously improving the LNP for our members and representatives, and placing the Party in the best possible position to win elections.

Josh Auld
LNP Regional Vice President

Josh is a born and bred Far North Queenslander. He lives in Cairns with his wife Mikayla, and son Emmett.

Growing up, studying and working in Cairns, Josh understands how important our regions are.

Josh joined the LNP in 2014 and quickly took to serving in local party unit leadership roles, including as Far North Young LNP Region Chair, Barron River SEC Chair, Leichhardt Vice Chair.

For several years, Josh served as the Secretary of the Far North Region of the LNP. In this role Josh took a keen interest in providing more accessible branch and party unit meetings to our rural and remote members. This included the adoption of video-link facilities for meetings so that no matter where a party member lives, they could still participate in their respective party units.

Josh was elected to the position of Regional Vice President in 2023 and has served in the role since.

Outside of the LNP, Josh is a Legal Practice Director at Harding Property Law in Cairns. Josh practices in corporate and commercial litigation, as well as Wills/Estates.