When will Nationals stand up and be counted?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison (centre) takes centre stage at a joint party room meeting in Canberra as Deputy PM Michael McCormack (left) and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg look on. Picture: Kym Smith

The Nationals are suffering from a crisis of leadership with growing internal divisions, the reasons for which are obvious. The question, however, is will they do something to fix the situation?

Michael McCormack isn’t a bad bloke and he’s not even that bad a leader. But he is clearly subservient to Scott Morrison and the Liberal Party – and that is the problem. It makes him look weak and failure usually follows such appearances.

Once upon a time, the Nationals knew how to throw their collective weight around the joint party room. In recent years, however, they haven’t – at least, not in the leadership group. Barnaby Joyce was an exception, but as leader even he acquiesced to the Liberals in a bid to promote unity within the Coalition government. If he hadn’t at the time, the leadership chaos within the Liberal Party would have boiled right over.

The subservience of the Nationals to the Liberals can be traced back to John Howard’s time. After years of Nationals running roughshod over him as opposition leader in the 1980s (remember that Joh for PM campaign?), Howard learnt how to manage the Coalition’s little brother: throw money and trinkets at him.

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Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack (right) watches Prime Minister Scott Morrison speak at a press conference at Eumungerie Farm, north of Dubbo, earlier this year. Picture: AAP

In doing so, Nationals were granted more than their fair share of cash for the bush, as well as a generous allocation of portfolio responsibilities. But the price was the necessary aura of “teamwork”, during which time Liberals slowly but surely competed in retiring Nationals’ seats and often won the subsequent showdown, dwindling the quota of Nationals in the joint party room. It was a takeover by stealth. Even when they didn’t knock off Nationals candidates, the Nationals came under pressure from regional independents because they weren’t standing up for the bush on issues (even if they claimed they didn’t need to because bags of money were flowing in).

Adding to the takeover of brand National was the merger of the parties in Queensland, meaning that Nationals could disregard their own logos and instead campaign with Liberals if they saw an advantage in doing so. At the 2016 election they didn’t do that because Joyce played out better in Queensland than Malcolm Turnbull. But in 2019, McCormack wasn’t a popular figure in Queensland and the contrast between Labor’s Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison as PM was a better campaign parallel.

Outspoken … former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce. Picture: Kym Smith

Leadership ambitions … Member for Maranoa David Littleproud. Picture: AAP

Hence, McCormack’s status as leader dwindled further, Joyce’s advocates became louder and alternative leadership options like David Littleproud started to surface. Littleproud is now embarking on a two-step strategy – take the deputy’s role first if he can, then perhaps go for the top prize.

All of the above speaks to one thing and one thing only for the Nationals from here: the need to reclaim their individual identity as a party and to throw off the yoke of the Liberals. This might mean a brand separation in Queensland, but that could be risky: as mentioned, the affiliation to Morrison and the Liberals saved them at the last election.

At the very least McCormack needs to start standing up to the Liberals, listening to the loud Mavericks within his own ranks and not be afraid to threaten government division if he doesn’t get his way. If he won’t do all of that, his critics will continue to come after him – and they will get him eventually.

“Did you ring any of your colleagues last week and canvass the idea of dumping @senbmckenzie as Deputy Leader of the @The_Nationals?”@frankelly08 questions Resources Minister @mattjcan over last week’s leadership rumblings.#Insiders #auspol pic.twitter.com/ArAmyOM36D

— Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) October 26, 2019

The disrespect shown for Nationals the other week when all geared up for a major policy announcement, press release at the ready no less, only to be beaten to the punch by the PM in an overlapping radio interview making the announcement before they could, was truly humiliating stuff.

And here we are in the midst of a drought, largely taking in Nationals electorates and affecting Nationals constituents, but the Liberal PM is taking the lead and getting all the attention. That never would have happened in the days of John “Black Jack” McEwen and his contemporaries, I can assure you.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University. He is also Network Ten’s political editor.