Everyone time someone writes something about the end of the Nats, one of the (increasingly few) honourable Members or Senators will come out with the talking point that “the obituary has been written thousands of times in the past”. Usually I’m inclined to agree, because there are signs of life in the old beast yet, but this comment from Charles Richardson in today’s Crikey made me think!
Queensland is now the only state where the National Party can be confident of outvoting the Greens. In the last NSW election they narrowly edged out the Greens for third place, while in all the other states the Greens are well clear.
Richardson was writing in the context of the final voting figures for the Queensland election:
In the overall totals, Labor held steady at about 47% of the primary vote. The Liberals and Nationals both improved slightly, and the Liberals slightly increased their lead over their Coalition partners, now 20.2% to 17.6%. The Greens were fourth on 7.9%, well clear of Family First (1.9%) and One Nation (0.6%).
Elsewhere: More from John Quiggin on the Queensland Nats.
I find myself saying this a lot these days, but:
The problem with the Nationals is the fact that they lack a purpose. The Liberals stand for private enterprise and keeping our zippers firmly tied up. Labor stand for…pretty much what the Libs do, but with unions. The Greens stand for peace, love, equality, environmentalism, and unicorns.
The Nats, supposedly, stand for ‘rural people’. The problem is that of policy differentiation; why should rural voters vote for a party which is exactly the same as the Liberals? Aside from Barnaby’s barnyard antics, the Nationals have been almost completely subsumed into the Liberal ideology and party. People vote for parties because they can sell them a reason WHY to vote for them; the problem is, why would anyone vote for the Nationals when they could just vote for the Liberals instead?
And yes, I realise the answer to that is ‘because the Liberals don’t stand in National seats’. But eventually, just by attrition (since the Liberals stand in Nat seats in by-elections, and often win), the Liberals won’t need the Nats anymore, and then it’s bye-bye Barnaby.
Of course, the same thing has been said for 20 years by a vast number of people and they’ve been wrong so far, but THIS time I can’t see how the Nats will live to be 100.
Mark:
I agree with Douglas McDonald …. except that now the fastest-growing club in Australia is the Association of My-Business-Was-Ruined-By-The-Coalition so I can’t see too many voting Liberal either.
Distaste for greenie extremists is still far too strong for the Greens Party to break the association many people have in their minds between “the greenies” and “the Greens”.
I think it will be Labor that picks up all the former Nationals voters. “Better the devil you know …..”.
DM you said
And then you say
I believe that the second statement is spot on. And let’s not forget that the Nationals increased their vote in this election.
While the Liberals and the ALP are busy generating and articulating policies, derived from ‘principles’; the Nationals are busy talking to people. The Nationals are pragmatists pure and simple.
They will continue in existence as long as there is a bush city divide. If they became Liberals, a new ‘country’ party would emerge. Stands out like pointer’s testicles. The rodent knows that and that is the reason he was opposed to any merger.
Vaughan Johson in white shoes I don’t think so.
wpd:
boggle-boggle-boggle …. that’s just my mind at the very thought of Vaughn Johnson in the White Shoe Brigade. I don’t think so either! He’s always struck me as fairly honest (regardless of my own political preferences)..
The problem is that the Nationals are seen as collaborating with the Liberals in some policies that have been a disaster in the bush. It may be Labor that does displace the Nationals as representing the bush.
GB, The Member for Gregory (a better way of describing him given my woeful spelling) is much more attuned to Labor ideals than Liberal ones. And you are right, he is straight up and down. I suspect Robert Sch thinks so as well.
VJ could never stand Bob Quinn by the way, even though IMHO, Quinn was a pretty good bloke.
In Vaughn Johnson’s eyes, Quinn had to be dodgy because he came from the Gold Coast and he didn’t drink rum.
I think the National’s decision to go with Simpson is a sound one even though it will cause ructions in some conservative circles.
I now look forward to the allocation of responsibilities.
Well, wpd, what I meant was that despite standing for ‘rural people’, they are functionally indistinguishable from the Libs. We can argue about whether that’s good for rural people or not, but it doesn’t matter, because people would have no reason to vote for a party which has become so dependent upon the Coalition so as to be functionally powerless, despite the actions of a few mavericks. It’s been 19 years since Joh for Canberra, but it seems like the Nats have been licking their wounds ever since. Black Jack McEwen would bite Mark Vaile’s head off if he were alive today, god bless him.
But I agree with you on the ‘new rural party’ issue, actually, but I think they’d be substantially different from the Nats. In part this is because any long-lasting party invariably becomes blander and blander, as tradition mounts up like sediment; a new rural party would probably be populist, protectionist, in favour of state intervention and deeply conservative. It’d actually look something like One Nation, actually. I see One Nation as not a single incident, but as the first in a wave of populist backlash against politicians, the same one that killed Keating and Goss and which, for a while, largely sustained the Democrats. Of course, the new party may not be as…ahem…colorful as One Nation, but they would certainly be from a similar mold.
wpd:
Dropping Bob Quinn was downright stupid but what can you expect from a party that is in senile decay? I referred elsewhere to the Liberals as Howard’s United Australia Party (Mk.II).
Douglas McDonald:
One Nation as part of a wave? Yes, that’s why I couldn’t understand the hysterical attacks on One Nation by middle-class Australian conservatives. Get rid of One Nation and something far worse might replace it.
I suspect that it is only a lack of money that is keeping the Australian Democrats from contesting and perhaps winning a few rural seats.
DM, I agree with the points you make, generally speaking. Your opinion that:
seems spot on. Historical choices always limit future options.
IMHO. Economic rationalism does not sit comfortably with the ‘bush’. But that is what the Libs are about and so is the mainstream ALP. To date the Nats have gritted their teeth and hoped for some crumbs.
I suspect that the rise in the the number of rural independents (Katter, Andren etc, including the singularly successful One Nation candidate in QLD) reflects one of the many problems the Nats have.
To date their strategy, federally at least, has been sucking up to the Liberals. This has a limited shelf life. At the local level, they are locked in the glorious past. The Borg recognised this but now he is history.
I think that demographics have stuffed the Nats. Their future prospects are not good.
In other countries there have been alliances between labour and the bush (can I say there is an objectively discernably common interest) but that would involve a whole fundamental rethink here in Australia.
There were once upon a time in Australia too, wpd, particularly in Victorian state politics where Labor governments rested on Country Party support and vice versa. The fact that Karlene Haywald, the sole Nationals MP in SA sits in the Labor Cabinet is a distant reflection of that.
Erm… and what does that say about Qld? Still the hillbilly redneck state?
I feel so proud. We need another Joh.
Tell that to the people of Nanango!
Morganzola:
The Greens in Queensland failed to distance themselves from the destructive looney campaigns and causes of urban extremists whose agenda was, as ever, personal gratification despite whatever they said about their beloved “environment”. There might be quite a lot of common ground shared by the Greens political party and so many rural voters ….. but this natural affinity will never translate into rural seats for Greens candidates so long as the Greens are seen as blindly supporting each and every Land Rights For Gay Whales campaign dreamed up by 2 or 3 weirdos in Brisbane or even further south. It’s all about perceptions and image. (No, you don’t need another Joh).
Mark:
Yeah. that was bloody cruel. Who thought that one up? Definitely not the late Sir Robert Sparkes.
Ah yes… poor old Joh Jr. You’re right – at least Qld’s moved on from those days.
And Graham’s right too about the potential affinity between the Greens and rural voters, except that I think in the recent campaign the problem wasn’t the “campaigns and causes of urban extremists” – the media releases I read were generally moderat and sensible. Rather, it seemed to me that the MSM just wasn’t interested in anybody who wasn’t Labor or Coalition.
I think the Greens’ time will come in Qld – quite possibly in the next Senate election. Bartlett’s pretty well dead in the water, and Family Farce didn’t poll at all well in the State election. Actually, last time around there wasn’t all that much in it between Barnaby Joyce and Drew Hutton…
“Queensland is now the only state where the National Party can be confident of outvoting the Greens.
Erm… and what does that say about Qld? Still the hillbilly redneck state?”
It probably reflect the fact that a greater fraction of Qld’s population lives in rural and regional areas than in other states and that people in those areas are more likely to vote National (at least in the eastern states).
The only other state in which the Nats might outvote the Greens would be NSW, as the Nats background vote is too low in other states (Vic, SA and WA).
BTW, don’t the WA Nats have more greenish policies than the WA Libs? and are possibly more socially liberal?
wpd, the Nationals are being squeezed between Labor and Liberal Parties and local independents. The latter “listen to people” and are more effective at local representation than those bound by party/coalition strictures. Would you back, say, Bill O’Chee or Peter McGauran over Tony Windsor? Really?
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: if Labor were smart they would steal a march on Howard by targetting the National-held seats hard over the next 12 months, following the Richmond formula but with more resources. There are only 11 of them, and if they got 7 or 8 (independents would account for the rest next time) they’d be halfway to government.
There’re people trying to resurrect the Nats. link
Morganzola, Mark and All:
Talk about bad timing. Last night, I told everyone why the Greens had Buckley’s chance of winning any rural seats despite the natural affinity between The Greens political party and rural-and-remote area voters.
This morning, I heard on the radio The Greens hit the jackpot by exposing all the spin and malarkey on inflation, consumer-price-index and standards of living, especially where it really does hurt those living in the bush. The distant rumbling sound I could hear was of several hundred head of former Nationals voters rushing to join The Greens. It even upstaged Andrew Bartlett’s oh-so-casual demonstration, this morning. that he would make a better Foreign Affairs Minister than Alexander Downer.
After that effort at prediction about The Greens, I hereby promise not to try to tell everyone which horse will win the 2006 Melbourne Cup.
Andrew E, I have visited your site and note the comment:
You may be right. Certainly, based on my personal experience at a State level, the Nationals hate the Liberals and the Liberals absolutely despise the Nationals.
But I don’t know enough about the history of National seats becoming Labor. What strategy/appeal could Labor offer??
IMHO, people like Katter get elected because they say ‘elect me’ and I’ll kick them between the big toes. The rural punters seem to have lost hope; so they vote for people who promise to ’spit in the eye.
I am not sure that they could ‘lower’ themselves to vote Labor. But I am interested in your views.
wpd I’m told that cane farmers can be a bit unreliable, some of them having come from a place known to elect communists. Also there are the people in country towns to consider.
I think farmers in Qld tend to see themsleves as men (and women) of enterprise unlikely to vote for a party espousing socialism in cahoots with the unions.
I could be wrong, though. The voting booth is a private place.
Zarquon, I have had some experience in dealing with the Exclusive Brethren. To say the least they are unusual. But they have financial, and presumably, political clout.
Their children who attend public schools are not allowed to watch any TV or use computers. That causes problems in any modern classroom. A person with whom I worked who was raised as an Exclusive Brethren told me of his childhood which was devoid of not only TV but also radio.
Women were never part of any delegations.
Also Exclusive Brethren do not vote. But as you suggest they are not above ‘influencing’ elections.
One of the ‘ironies’ as far as I was concerned related to their ‘hatred’ of computers. They drove to see me in very modern computer controlled vehicles, presumably stopping at computer controlled traffic lights, and ascending twenty odd stories in computer controlled lifts. They didn’t object when their concerns were recorded on a laptop etc.
They are interesting.
Brian, yes Fred Paterson was indeed an intersting character. Certainly his election as a representative from Bowen owed much to cane farmers BUT miners’ votes were also crucial.
As to your general point that
I agree. But these divides make the ‘farmers’ politically impotent.
Brian:
About cane-farmers being unreliable voters.
The union most cane-farmers dealt with was the AWU; an atypical union to say the least (some would say peculiar or use swear-words when speaking about the AWU …. and non-members were even more unkind!); this regular contact with the AWU certainly did influence their attitudes.
But, because many farmers on small assignments boosted their income by working in the sugar mills, they could also be very enthusiastic unionists too. This was a situation with which neither the CountryParty/NationalParty nor the Labor Party could ever come to terms with though individual party officials did recognize the vote-winning potential of it.
Add to that the anarchist, syndicalist, communist, fascist, libertarian, mafia, freemason, Catholic and whatever backgrounds of migrants who became cane-farmers and you have a political potpourri that seemed always to be beyond the comprehension of poltical high-flyers from multicultural Sydney or Canberra.
Actually, I hate to revive dead threads, but I think Bob Katter’s ‘beast’ could be just what we’ve been talking about: a grassroots, rural party, set up as an alternative to the two major parties.
According to today’s Oz, it’ll favour:
-more state intervention
-collective sale (or something) for ag products
-greater personal freedom (read: guns, fishing, hunting)
This could be start of something rich and strange. Or, more likely, a bunch of ignorant rednecks complaining about the government. We’ll just wait and see, won’t we?
wpd:
This is one of those instances where: never mind if it works in practice, how does it work in theory?
RARA tends to feature lower incomes than urban Australia, and if Labor resurrected Bill McKell by going around the regions and telling it straight, going through the coastal caravan parks from Hervey Bay to Lakes Entrance, there are plenty of stray votes to be picked up. City voters would be more awake up to ALP malarkey about job security but rural voters would give it a go. The model is Labor’s Justine Elliott knocking over a third-generation National Minister in 2004, with everything going against her except votes.
The tough, clever and lucky ALP machine of the 1980s would be all over this. There’s nothing the Libs could do short of declare the Coalition over and charge in themselves: won’t happen before next year, but the following term of Parliament will be interesting (and will guarantee Labor wins state elections 2007-10).
wpd: Just checked that Katter won his seat from Labor. Apart from perhaps Mallee there’s hardly a Nat seat which has not been held by Labor at some stage.
D McD: How is this different from what Windsor and Andren (or for that matter, Graham Campbell) have been going on about for years?
Katter’s father had held the seat before him – and it went to Labor when Katter Snr retired (as I recall). Katter Snr was once ALP – then moved via the DLP to the Nats.
Incidentally, the ALP member Katter defeated is Rob Hulls – the current Victorian Labor Attorney-General.
In the 70s there were talks about an amalgamation nationally between the DLP and the Nats. But in Qld the DLP essentially collapsed itself into the Nats (it had a different trajectory anyway from the Victorian DLP as the QLP split in 57 and it didn’t affiliate with the DLP til the early 60s). There’s a substantial sort of pseudo-labourist agrarian socialist Catholic conservative faction or tendency within the Qld Nats – hence Barnaby.
wow – seriously weird long forgotten politcal flashback. Proposed alliance between Qld DLP and National/Country Party – proposed name (if I remember correctly) was the National Alliance. Unless I dreamed/halluncinated it, a function to promote the establishment of said alliance was held on the tennis court at my mother’s place (OK, I lived there too) around the mid 1970s. I’m still grumpy she used the hoops of my kiddie croquet set to tie up some signs on the tennis court fence (I know I hadn’t used them for a year or two, but it was MY croquet set – coulda bloody asked so I coulda said no way). The Alliance was stillborn – the croquet set was avenged.
Even tho I have Green tendencies, I still reckon yer right Graham Bell regarding Nats being more likely to shift in Labor’s direction…perhaps Greens will benefit in the Senate (I certainly hope so) but a case in point is my Father-in-law (he has a hobby farm & has spent his life in the bush, nary a sock or shoe in sight). For a year or so he’s been hinting he’ll swing his vote from the Federal Coalition to Labor ’cause he thinks “the Government doesn’t have time for, or protects, the small farmers”.
To him & his cocky mates, Howard is selling the country down the drain to the Americans & big companies/landowners. He reckons as long as a Whitlam-like character doesn’t takeover Labor, they could win. Regardless of how many positive policies of the Whitlam era I point out to him, he stands stubbornly by the opinion that “Whitlam sent the Nation bankrupt”. So it looks like Beazley’s the go.
No wonder Vaille is panicking…& w/ the latest revelations regarding what Bushies can expect from Telstra…& the Thai ‘bloodless’ coup that could possibly see changes in trade terms…& the possible Dem takeover in Congress that might lead to committees w/ REAL claws to unearth the AWB & Aussie Government’s motives in Iraq, & lead to more competition from US wheat against our exports…the rural sector is going to recognize ‘deceit’ for what it is…& realise their interests aren’t coming first when it comes to most of the present Nats in parliament. Katter’s no fool, nor Barnaby…they saw it coming…wouldn’t be surprised if Barnaby knocks out Vaille down the road to take the Leadership…or heads into Independent territory. We need more rogues & less Borgs here in QLD to stop the rot.
Everyone:
As I write this, ABC News is talking about Ray’s attack on ALP factional leaders. If the ALP factional system is finally smashed, it will certainly make Labor more attractive to rural voters. And if Peter Beattie enters Federal politics, it will win: I suspect many people say they hate him but still vote for him.
I would like to see The Greens win more seats but definitely NOT at the price of losing Australian Democrats seats. We need the Democrats in the bush.
The ABC are on strike today, so I suppose “pot calls kettles black” is a big story in a depleted newsroom. Momentum to break factionalism inside major parties is non-existant, inertia and momentum to maintain them is strong due to armies of actual and would-be jobsworths.
Beattie is politically exhausted. He may get a second wind if Bligh gets overwhelmed and is heading for defeat, but otherwise that bird has flown.
Are they approaching anything like a critical mass in any rural electorate in any state/territory? How many Democrats are sitting, elected members of local councils, rural or urban? Anyone?
yea, puts both my partner & I in a quandary…we like Andrew Bartlett’s policies…but also want to see the Greens in the Senate put some pressure on Labor (if they win) to go less w/ fossil fuels.
We’ll vote 1 Labor in the Reps provided they get this factionalism stuff dealt with…& don’t triangulate too much…was amazed how ‘alarmist Rudd was yesterday over the Thai ‘bloodless’ coup…I mean c’mon!…overthrown prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is no straight arrow…& that’s about as diplomatic as I can put it.
Andrew E, in the early years of the australian parliament, Labor held quite a few outback seats – I’ve read that it was because these outback seats had a lot of workers in them – and as farming became more efficient (I think), fewer and fewer workers were needed, and the nats have held many of them for many decades now.
Fair enough sacha.
Today, coastal seats are full of refugees from the city who are used to Labor-Liberal contests. They move to a coastal seat and there is no recognisable Lib, just a slow-talking freak in a tweed jacket covered in grass-seeds against a seemingly normal Labor candidate. Over time the Nat MP sitting on an ever-diminishing majority has less reason to love the newcomers, nor they the local member, and so it goes. It’s easy to be blithe about the long-predicted demise of the Nats, but there is no countervailing trend that would suggest their future is secure.
The trend you described left a greater proportion of small business owner/operators and some reasonably well-off people in the middle of last century. The slow decline of rural communities means that this conservative bulwark i rural communities is not what it was.