Craig Kelly resigns from the Liberal Party to move to the crossbench
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Liberal MP Craig Kelly has just told the Coalition party room he will quit the party and move to the crossbench.
Mr Kelly told colleagues he would still support the government on matters of supply and confidence, sources in the room said.
Liberal MP Craig Kelly has resigned from the party to move to the crossbench.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Sources said he was “very kind and generous” to Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
His defection to the crossbench to sit as an independent reduces the government’s slender margin to 76.
Mr Kelly, who holds the NSW seat of Hughes in southern Sydney, has been an increasingly controversial figure during the coronavirus pandemic through his promotion of alternative treatments for the virus through his social media.
He was last week banned from posting on Facebook for one week after he violated the tech giant’s COVID-19 misinformation policy.
Facebook also deleted four coronavirus-related posts from Mr Kelly’s official MP Facebook page, including one where he likened the wearing of masks by children to child abuse.
MORE TO COME
Rob Harris is the National Affairs Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based at Parliament House in Canberra