Some very mixed signals were sent over the weekend about the future of the Nationals. Their huge defeat in Lyne will have been disheartening, not so much because it happened, but because Rob Oakeshott won so overwhelmingly with a primary of 64%. The result will encourage Indepedents to try to cherry pick their remaining nine seats. Outside Queensland, where the LNP deal will protect sitting members from Liberal competition and where their three seats are reasonably safe against Labor, the Nats also face potential threats from the Liberal Party when seats fall vacant, and there are some seats which are also potentially vulnerable to Labor. But in the meantime, Labor’s majority in the Reps over the Coalition has increased, and Brendan Nelson can’t take much comfort from a poor campaign in Mayo where the Liberal Party only just held off a challenge from The Greens in a blue-ribbon seat.
But over in the West, Brendon Grylls’ strategy has worked a treat, with the Nats improving their vote and holding the balance of power in both houses. At state level, agrarian socialism and the politics of pork barrelling and extortionate negotiation seems to be a viable strategy for the party. So both Warren Truss and Barnaby Joyce have been contemplating an exit from the federal Coalition. As Andrew Bartlett points out, this is pretty weird for two Queenslanders who are supporting a merged entity at state level. The Nats, of course, don’t see the dissonance, because they’ve effectively swallowed up the Queensland Libs, and are happily preselecting their own members as LNP candidates in state seats which the Liberals had a better chance of winning in, and claiming that the “new face of Queensland” comprises a frontbench where the Borg has only one Brisbane member. Meanwhile, some former Liberals sit on the sidelines, hoping to resurrect their party if the LNP bombs at its first electoral outing when Anna Bligh goes to the polls.
In actual fact, the Nationals are a collection of disparate state parties rather than a national party. What works in WA and SA may not work in Victoria, NSW or Queensland. It leaves them in a huge dilemma, though, about how they position themselves federally, and any choice they make there - whether the previously mooted amalgamation or a Coalition split - will in turn effect their state strategies. The WA Nats are actually rather lucky they don’t have any federal representation.
“The result will encourage Indepedents to try to cherry pick their remaining nine seats. ”
Or it might encourage current National Party members to declare as independents and represent themselves as a modern alternative to a candidate controlled by others who are unaware of the local circumstances.
Rob Oakeshott is very popular in Port and as soon as he declared his intention to run the election result was decided.
He was the National member for Port Macquarie in the NSW assembly until he resigned from that party in 1999.From his policy statement he might as well be a national party member anyway!
Sorry , he resigned in 2002.
Leaving the Coalition in opposition is meaningless of itself, there are 3 options 1. reform a Coalition government if the opportunity arose, this might be Truss’ position; 2. The Nats refuse to join a Liberal government but can be relied on to support one (likely WA outcome?), 3. The Nats became a genuine balance of power party willing to support either Labor or Liberal. The later would be a political revolution but if a ‘National’ party emerged that followed this policy it would really be an entirely new party. Option 1 is of little significance, 2 and 3 are different.The media however mixes up all 3 options which enables the eastern states Nats to mislead voters.
I believe that the Nationals could survive as a political identity across the nation if they go into alone and stand up for their constituents. For such a long time, they have just been ‘yes men’ to the Liberal Party and have rarely stood up for the country. It would also be much better for democracy if the Nationals did become an independant party.
In Victoria, they reformed a Coalition this year, purportedly over shared outrage over the Sugarloaf pipeline, probably because they think they’ve got a chance of winning in 2010.
Their 2006 campaign was basically we’ll extract pork for you.
Where does that leave us? Probably that the Victorian Nationals will assume a role similar to the Howard-era federal Nationals if the conservatives get in - pork extractors for their seats.
The National are in trouble but their constituency is alive and well and pissed off. I think the reason they don’t like their political representatives any more has to do with their declining fortunes after competition policy and globalization. Unfortunately for them and for other agricultural producers the free market mantra is a do as we say not as we do thing in the US, the EU and Japan.
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Given their environmental problems they might turn to the Greens who are both environmentally concerned and critical of globalization. Or they would if the Greens weren’t culturally the opposite of them.
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One Nation resurgence?
The Nationals have always been different in the various states. In Victoria they historically represented soldier settlers and dairy farmers. The smaller farms in that state meant the Country Party held proportionately more seats than might have been expected.
They were also more agrarian socialist and had no trouble attracting Labor support to govern in the 1940s and 50s. The Eildon Dam is a legacy of the Country Party government.
In New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia the party represented broadacre wheat farmers and woolgrowers. Country people will know that dairy farmers and pastoralists are different species.
In WA there was a split in the 1970s, which I don’t know much about, but it cost them federal representation. Hendy Cowan though, who led the party for many years, was more in the Victorian tradition.
I’ve met Brendon Grylls a few times. He believes in the independent path he is travelling and he’s been spruiking it for several years.
I think he’s leaning towards supporting Labor. The complicating factors are his own MPs and the future of Allan Carpenter.
The Liberals haven’t exactly been sweet talking the Nats in WA. Julie Bishop, in particular, has been arrogant towards them.
I really think the Nats will take the best deal. The deputy premiership, which Barnett offered to Grylls, won’t be a factor.