Peter Dutton has been hailed as a “great son” of the Liberal National Party after making a surprise appearance at its annual convention.

The former opposition leader received a standing ovation at an LNP gathering in Brisbane on Friday after being saluted by his successor Sussan Ley and outgoing president Lawrence Springborg.

Dutton has rarely been publicly sighted since the devastating federal campaign, when the Coalition lost the election and he was dumped from his seat of Dickson in Brisbane.

But he enjoyed the spotlight on Friday – seated at the back of the room among hundreds of fellow party members – as Springborg called him a “great son of the party”.

“Appreciate your service, Peter. Appreciate all that you have done for our party,” Springborg, the architect behind the LNP merger in Queensland in 2008, told the convention.

Springborg said Dutton would have been prime minister if the party’s Queensland May 2025 federal poll success was repeated nationwide.

The Coalition holds 16 of 30 seats in Queensland after winning more than 50 per cent of the two-party preferred vote at the federal election.

“If the other states and territories were able to achieve what we achieved in Queensland at the last federal election … we would be holding government in Australia now with a four-seat majority, with Peter Dutton … being our prime minister,” Springborg said.

Ley also hailed her predecessor, prompting another standing ovation.

“Your record is one of courage, commitment and conviction. I’m proud to have been your deputy for three years,” she said.

“I think about Peter often as I walk the corridors of Parliament House – what would Peter say? What would you do?”

In her speech to the party faithful, Ley said they must face the reality of the federal election after Labor pulled off its biggest victory since 1943.

Plans to modernise and broaden the LNP’s appeal were paramount, she said.

“When we next face the voters, we will say ‘judge us by our plans and our actions’,” Ley said.

“If we do our job well, I am confident Australians will once again place their trust in us.

“Our task is to take the lessons of defeat and turn them into the foundations of renewal.”

After Ley’s speech, Dutton told the Seven Network that he backed Ley.

He said she and Nationals leader David Littleproud were doing a “great job”, and that he had been humbled by Friday’s standing ovation from the LNP faithful.

“I’m very grateful. I’ve got some wonderful friends in the room,” he said.

“I’ve dedicated almost a quarter of a century to this party and love our state and our country, and I will always do everything I can to see the best days ahead of us.”

But on a potential return to politics, Dutton was brief.

“No, mate, I’m too old for that,” he said.

Springborg has announced he will step down as party president, a position he has held since 2021.

But his impact has spanned decades, highlighted by his instrumental role in merging the parties and creating the LNP 17 years ago.

“He has helped formulate a merged identity that nobody else was able to pull off,” QUT Adjunct Associate Professor John Mickel said of Springborg.

“Some 17 years on, [the LNP] has not only endured, but it has prospered.”

The LNP has savoured local, state and federal success. It has dominated Australia’s biggest council – Brisbane City – for 20 years, while David Crisafulli ended Labor’s nine-year reign at the 2024 Queensland election.

The LNP maintained a lower-house majority in Queensland at the federal election, despite Labor’s crushing win.

Springborg remains the youngest person elected to Queensland parliament after winning the seat of Carnarvon in 1989 aged 21.

He led the National Party in the early 2000s before heading the first merged LNP in 2008-2009 and 2015-2016.

He will remain mayor of Queensland border town Goondiwindi.

The three-day LNP conference continues on Saturday with Nationals leader David Littleproud taking centre stage, and Crisafulli to appear on Sunday.

The party will debate 163 resolutions in open sessions over the convention’s three days, with topics including abandoning net zero, phasing out pokies and an antisemitism summit.

-with AAP