Vikki Campion: Nats, it’s time to get out — now
The career politicians in the Liberal party are riding roughshod over the Nationals and the junior party would be better off on its own, writes Vikki Campion.
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Only in Australian politics are you expected to remain in a toxic relationship that resides somewhere between manipulative and dysfunctional.
If the National Party was your best friend, you would be telling her to run a mile from the Liberals.
The Nats are like a gaslighted wife given $100 to do the family groceries by a husband who expects gratitude and a cooked lunch on his way to play golf. When she complains and tries to leave, she is told she is an evil homewrecker.
Just this week, the Liberals stole a seat from the Nats forever.
Port Macquarie has become the only Liberal seat in the nation where not a single soul voted Liberal — not even the nine Liberal branch members.
If former Nationals MP Leslie Williams has the courage of her conviction, she should call a by-election and see how well she does against the Nationals candidate when she has only nine volunteers.
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In NSW cabinet there are 23 ministers – just seven are Nats (and it could drop to six), while in federal cabinet there are 23 ministers and only four Nats.
Before politics, the Nationals ministers were teachers, tradies, local journos or small business people, but the controlling senior Libs in NSW cut their teeth on, well, politics.
If every National disagrees with a policy, they are woefully outnumbered by Machiavellian career politicians with no voices of reason to back them in.
Staffers-turned-ministers such as Environment Minister Matt Kean control the ideology and that’s why reasonable voices aren’t being heard.
It’s not left-versus-right or progressive-versus-conservative, it’s the career politician versus the local champion. Political animals know how to get the outcome they desire because they have been around the houses for 20 years.
When they lose on policy they go straight for personal attack, because that’s all they know.
When Nationals seats were under threat by the Shooters, the Liberals sitting in the largest, best-funded and most strategic campaign infrastructure chose not to help.
While they are happy to play dress-ups as five-minute Henry Lawsons in big crisp hats and shiny boots on the odd regional excursion, they watched as Barwon and Murray were lost.
When the Liberals do help, it is former PM John Howard himself who comes to regional towns.
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Senior Labor and Liberal stalwarts can’t understand why the Nationals allow themselves to be treated like doormats.
As regional Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon tells the parliament, the calloused-handed, hard-headed leaders of the Nationals such as Black Jack McEwen would roll in their graves to see how their party has capitulated.
Mark Coulton, the federal Regional Communications Minister, does not have sign-off for Sky Muster or fixed wireless internet, the rural and regional part of the NBN – a major part of regional communications.
The reason Barnaby Joyce often sounds like he is interrupting on Sunrise is due to the delay between him speaking and his voice hitting your television. That’s how long it takes for it to get to the Sky Muster satellite 36,000km above the Earth.
For kids trying to study in towns with a population under 2000, where the internet is shockingly slow and unpredictable, exams are extra anxiety-inducing because at any time the net can and does inexplicably drop out. So do Wi-Fi phone calls, and there’s no mobile tower to turn to when it happens.
Wednesday’s $3.5 billion fast NBN upgrade will benefit Sydney and Melbourne and 85 regional CBDs such as Rockhampton and Armidale that already had internet – but does nothing for the sweeping plains across the rest of the country.
If that is the oversight the Nationals have over portfolios they do hold, then imagine the influence they have over the ones they don’t.
Presently, they can only tinker with legislation within their own narrow portfolio spectrum.
If they were on the crossbench, they wouldn’t just be sitting with Mark Latham in NSW or Jacqui Lambie and Bob Katter in the federal sphere, they would be holding the balance of power.
They could change any piece of legislation they pleased, and demand their pound of flesh to do so.
If a united Nationals did this they would be heard again and people would vote for them because they showed strength.
They aren’t ripping the Coalition apart. It was over years ago.
The right question should be why they go back at all. If they left, they could change our world.
The goal should be walking back into their towns as the fighter, telling constituents they will no longer need to wait three weeks to see the doctor or drive four hours to Newcastle to see the dentist.
They can start their own business because they will be able to make a phone call without it dropping out.
They will be able to do study because they have a reliable internet connection.
I used to think that it was better to have a seat at the table.
Now I realise it’s better to determine what they are eating for dinner.