Craig Kelly floats preference offer for Coalition MPs who break ranks in parliament

Craig Kelly has signalled the United Australia party could throw a political lifeline to incumbent MPs prepared to break ranks and support two new private members bills he will bring forward during the final sitting weeks of parliament.

The Morrison government struggled to keep its program on the rails because a group of government senators refused to support routine legislation. Lower house MPs also crossed the floor to support crossbench proposals.

As MPs prepare to return to Canberra for the final sitting weeks, there has been a run of bad polls suggesting the Coalition could lose any election held today.

The Morrison government was a significant beneficiary of preference flows from the UAP and One Nation at the 2019 federal election.

Labor strategists in Queensland are hoping the Clive Palmer backed-UAP holds firm on preferencing sitting members of parliament last, because the ALP currently holds only a handful of seats in the state.

He said the second bill would be a reboot of his legislation stopping commonwealth, state and territory governments and other non-government entities from issuing domestic Covid-19 vaccine passports. Kelly said he would attempt to apply that prohibition to three vaccinations rather than two.

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, is pushing via national cabinet to change the definition of fully vaccinated to mean three doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, which would pave the way for changes to vaccine mandates, which Kelly opposes.

The prime minister has not opposed the definitional change being sought by Andrews and some of the other premiers. But sources report Morrison has asked a number of questions during recent meetings with his state and territory counterparts about the practical impact of the new definition.