Strewth: Helping hands

How dare the Nats take a leaf from the Liberal Party playbook!

There’s something vaguely Escheresque about the spectacle of Liberals getting grumpy about the Nationals’ leadership tensions so close to a by-election brought about by the Liberals’ leadership tensions. That takes a bit of chutzpah. Alas, it turns out not all Nats are chutzpah connoisseurs, one passing on the following suggestion via the ABC’s Lucy Barbour: “The Libs can go and get the (bad word that rhymes with duck) back in their box after their conduct.” The role of conjuring the truest magic, though, fell to Michelle Landry. “No truth in the myth and rumour of a potential leadership change. We are getting on with the job of representing the interests of #regional Australia,” the MP tweeted. Then, barely more than a half-hour later, the same Landry was on Sky News, saying: “Barnaby is keen down the track to take over the leadership … I’m sure at some point in his career Barnaby will be the leader again.”

Bubble, bubble

Perhaps the greatest outcome of it was that Scott Morrison made a video. It was one of those affairs in which the Prime Minister looks up in delighted surprise to find viewers in his office with him. He gets up and strolls towards the camera with a “G’day, you may have heard of the ‘Canberra bubble’.” As he sits down on the edge of his desk and plants a foot on a chair, he explains why the “Canberra bubble” — which encompasses all manner of strife, presumably including the spill that put Morrison in this office — is a Bad Thing. The video is called “The things that matter”, bravely sharing its name with a policy that led then Liberal leader Alexander Downer into trouble in 1994. Not that people are afraid of historical echoes at the moment. Assistant Trade Minister Mark Coulton informed his local organ the Daily Liberal: “I think this leadership spill talk is Canberra gossip.” While the sentiment is understandable, think of Tony Abbott’s vow shortly before he was rolled in 2015 that he was “not going to get caught up in Canberra gossip”. Mathias Cormann joined in at the time, though he eschewed the geographical specifics and simply called it “anonymous gossip”.

Whoever that may be

Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie was moved to lyricism in the Senate when she was invited to reflect on her party’s leadership: “… passing on the National Party leadership baton is an incredibly boring process. If I go back to Black Jack (McEwen), who ended up in a tie, he had to wait 18 years for (Arthur) Fadden to retire to assume the leadership. Even in recent times deputy leaders have waited patiently for the current leader of the National Party to retire before they proceed to leadership because they aspire to ensure that rural and regional Australia, that the leader of the National Party, whoever that may be, is able to continue the strong commitment and delivery for regional Australia.” Quote, unquote.

Willing and stable

John Howard, who has first-hand experience of seeing a seat held by a prime minister slip from his party’s hands, was in Wentworth yesterday. “If this seat falls to an independent, it will rob the Liberal government of its overall majority in parliament,” he said, which was fairly incontestable. Given the reasons for the by-election, the next bit sounded a little more faith-based: “It will bring more instability and if we want stability, the way to get stability is to make sure Dave Sharma becomes the member for Wentworth and then re-elect the Coalition government …” Like ScoMo’s explanation of the “magic” of science on Wednesday night, it all begins with belief.

Policy on the fly

One person spoken of as a future Nats leader is Agriculture Minister David Littleproud, but he commendably busied himself yesterday with his portfolio, not least an announcement about the war on a spineless pest. We speak of the fruit fly: “The smart traps use lures to attract fruit flies. Females are lured in by food, and males by chemicals they think will make them more attractive to female flies. Sensors will be able to detect when a fruit fly is in the trap … and send an alert to a grower’s mobile phone.”

Now he’s a believer

As for the man of the hour, Michael McCormack, he was out and about deploying his military-strength optimism: “Well, Barnaby Joyce has said that he’s not canvassing it, and I believe him. Whether or not others are, well, that’s a matter for them. The fact is I have the majority support in the National Party and the fact is I have to say not one National Party member has come to me and said they’re dissatisfied with anything.” There’s no cheer quite like McCormack cheer.

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