The Nationals Senate Leader Ron Boswell greeted
Julian McGauran’s defection to the Libs with a curious release on Monday:

Boswell saddened at McGauran’s Party exit

Leader of The
Nationals in the Senate, Ron Boswell, said today that he felt sad and
disappointed that his friend, colleague and former Senate Party Whip, Senator
Julian McGauran, had chosen to leave The Nationals.

“I have worked
closely with Senator McGauran as a friend and Party colleague over twenty years
and watched him mature into a very capable Senator, Party Whip and committed pro-life advocate, and was
deeply disappointed to hear of his decision to leave The Nationals.”

The
politics of abortion will play out interestingly for McGauran and his new
party.

A senior
Nationals figure has pointed out to Crikey the irony that McGauran’s great
enemy on the matter of RU486, Victorian country Liberal MP Sharman Stone, was
promoted to the ministry.

“Nothing
motivates him more than that matter. Nothing motivates her more,” our sources
says. Interesting…