Barnaby Joyce fended off for now but Michael McCormack’s survival doesn’t solve Nationals’ woes

Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Michael McCormack and new deputy Nationals leader David Littleproud after the spill.

Barnaby Joyce has been fended off, for now. But Michael McCormack’s survival as Nationals’ leader does not solve the Nationals’ woes.

McCormack’s retention of the leadership ensures a continuation of his invisibility next to Scott Morrison and the Nationals’ failing support in rural Australia which is so essential to the Coalition continuing in government.

As Nationals’ leader and deputy prime minister McCormack is now left with a party deeply divided over his leadership and style; a challenger who has got considerable support and who has no reason to pull back from leadership ambitions; a Senate team stripped of talent and experience; and an ambitious deputy in David Littleproud who has been marked for leadership.

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce is seen after a Nationals party leadership spill at Parliament House in Canberra.

What’s more, and even more alarming for the PM and the Coalition, McCormack as leader has been unable to take the fight to conservative independents and minor parties who are attracting voter support at the expense of the Nats in the areas of water, drought, dams and base-load power.

The most significant number in this week’s Newspoll in The Australian was not the two-party preferred lead for Labor of 52 to 48 per cent or even the Coalition’s fall in primary vote from 40 to 38 per cent but the rise in “others” to 10 per cent — back to election time levels.

The Coalition’s falling primary vote is not being lost to Labor; it’s being lost to those “others” which includes the Shooters and Fishers who are drawing strong support in McCormack’s home state of NSW.

Unless McCormack does more than entrench himself using ministerial posts as prizes and actually learns and changes from this near-death experience, the Prime Minister’s position and the fate of the Coalition will continue to fade into the smoke of the summer of 2019.