State politics

Brough was elected as the President of the Queensland division of the Liberal Party in May 2008.^[10] He remained in that position after a vote in July 2008 to merge into the new Liberal National Party of Queensland (LNP). He opposed the merger as it had not received final ratification from the federal Liberal Party. On 26 September 2008 he resigned from his post, saying: "You try and do the right thing and, quite frankly, at this point it's all over the shop and it's no wonder voters get so disenchanted with the non-Labor side of politics."^[11]

It was because of his opposition of the merger to the LNP that he was not a candidate for his former seat of Longman at the 2010 federal election. That would have meant securing preselection from the LNP in order to have a good chance of reclaiming the seat. He also criticised the party leading up to the 2010 election on its absence of policies, but he did not rule out running for his resident seat of Fisher against Peter Slipper, a National party member who had joined the Liberals.^[12]

Federal politics and diary allegations

In 2006, Brough was the Minister for Families and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Faced with allegations regarding the degradation of Aboriginal communities and frequent cases of child sexual abuse, Brough, combined with the Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin, commissioned a report into child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory. This report received much criticism, beginning with the view that it was a hasty reaction to these allegations. Researchers have suggested that the report was not simply used as an opportunity to resolve these issues, but rather as another way to control these communities.^[13]

In mid-2012, following the defection of Peter Slipper from the Liberals to become an independent MP and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Brough announced that he was seeking LNP preselection for the seat of Fisher for the 2013 federal election.^[14] On 29 July 2012, it was announced that had won the preselection for the seat,^[15] despite criticism over his contact with James Ashby. Ashby had been an adviser to Slipper who had made accusation of sexual harassment. Justice Steve Rares found that Brough had acted with Ashby and another Slipper staffer, Karen Doane, in abusing the judicial process for the "purpose of causing significant public, reputational and political damage to Mr Slipper".^[16] On 9 October 2012, Slipper resigned as Speaker following revelations of mobile phone text messages he had sent to Ashby. In an early 2014 appeal ruling the full bench of the Federal Court found that Justice Rares had "no basis to conclude that Brough was part of any combination with anyone in respect to the commencement of these proceedings with the predominant purpose of damaging Slipper in the way alleged or at all", and that there was "nothing untoward about those matters".^[17][18]

On 29 December 2015 Brough stood down from the Turnbull Ministry and moved to the backbench pending the completion of an investigation by the Australian Federal Police over the alleged copying of the diary of former speaker Peter Slipper. Jamie Briggs also resigned on the same day. Questions were raised over the holiday timing of the announcements.^{[19][20][21][22]}

On 13 February 2016, Brough resigned from the Ministry.^[1] On 26 February he announced that he would not recontest the seat of Fisher,^[23] concluding that it was "a privilege and an honour" to represent the electorate.^[24]