Cook MP Jason O'Brien said the Liberal National Party should be ashamed of itself for abandoning its planned Shadow Cabinet meeting in Cairns so it can "play politics" over the Campbell Newman-Jeff Seeney leadership issue.

"It was extremely important for Mr Newman to visit the Far North as a matter of urgency," he said. "Mr Newman is on the public record as being strongly opposed to funding for regional Queensland, and he needs to understand first-hand how difficult the economic conditions here are.

"Just as he has deserted flood-affected residents of Brisbane to play political games, he has deserted the residents of the Far North for the same reason."

Mr O'Brien said that Mr Newman and his supporters are putting his ambitions before the needs of Queenslanders.

"The Liberal-National Party is strongly opposed to continuing economic recovery spending, criticising Labor's attempts to protect regional economies from the effects of the Global Financial Crisis and recent natural disasters.

"People and businesses in my electorate, especially the Tablelands, Port Douglas, the Islands and the Cape, are still doing things very tough, and Mr Newman should have been up here straight away so that he fully understands the economic and financial pain in the Far North," Mr O'Brien said.

"He needed to be able to go back to Brisbane and say to his colleagues in the State and Federal Opposition that the Far North needs their support. Instead, he has decided that his own political ambitions must come first amid growing dissent within the LNP about his backroom coup and the disregard it shows for parliamentary democracy in this state."

Mr O'Brien called on the LNP to reschedule their Shadow Cabinet meeting immediately.