­Michael McCormack keeps seat warm

It’s been a torrid fortnight for the Nationals leader.

Michael McCormack raises smiles from, from left, Scott Morrison, David Littleproud and Josh Frydenberg during question time on Thursday.

There is a path through the pain for the Nationals and Michael ­McCormack that can restore strength and forestall eager predictions of a downfall for the century-old rural party. It is a path recognised throughout the party, which has been so bitterly divided for the first two weeks of this parliamentary year.

The solution has no guarantee of success and provides a framework only to deal with threats to the Nationals’ long-term survival. Essentially, the expectation is that McCormack, at some stage, will manage a leadership transition to his new deputy, David Littleproud. ­McCormack will behave with dignity and the new leader will reach out to all sides, appointing Bar­naby Joyce to a ministry. Joyce, for his part, will not challenge again and will back the new team.

Threats to the Nationals are not new and include: losing votes to conservative splinter parties and independents, particularly in Queensland; lacking a distinct identity from their senior Liberal Coalition partner; being identified with policies appealing to inner-metropolitan voters at odds with rural and regional interests; falling rural populations meaning fewer country electorates; urbanisation of coastal electorates; and the spread of radical progressive anti-mining and anti-farming movements.

Nor are the answers new: run Nationals who can appeal to disenchanted and disenfranchised conservative voters; take an assert­ive, independent Nationals position within the Coalition; stand for crucial industries and policies even if unpopular in the cities; identify the causes and ­issues in individual seats “west of the divide”; back small businesses and blue-collar workers in more populated coastal seats; and ­expose the left-leaning organisers of the so-called community groups campaigning against traditional industries.

All of these challenges and ­solutions have been part of the political landscape for every Nationals leader for the past 40 years. Indeed, the failures of Charles Blunt, who was succeeded by Tim Fischer in 1990, mark the beginning of the existential threat to the Nationals. Blunt took the place of the last of the old greats of the National and Country parties, Doug ­Anthony, in the northern NSW coastal seat of Richmond in 1984, and in 1989 he replaced the last of the old guard, Ian Sinclair, as ­Nationals leader.

As an economist, Blunt wanted to be closer to the Liberal Party, particularly on deregulation, and was less socially conservative than his parliamentary colleagues. He also posed for the media dressed in a suit sitting on a horse to show he could ride.

At the 1990 election, Blunt, as Nationals leader, lost the seat of Richmond for the country party for the first time since 1922 as a ­result of his policies, urbanisation of the coastal seat, votes splitting to conservative independents and preferences from an anti-war campaigner going to Labor. It illus­trated the disaster facing the Nationals unless they changed.

The then little-known and ­underrated Fischer did change how the Nationals were seen, what they stood for and, most important, how they operated successfully in coalition with the Liberals without being subsumed.

In government, after John Howard’s election in 1996, Fischer kept a rural and regional profile and was assertive while staunchly helping Howard as a coalitionist over the crippling national gun laws debate, the GST and, eventually, with the help of Nationals Senate legend Ron Boswell in Queensland, drawing back voters lost to conservative independents and One Nation.

It was Boswell’s innate political sense, his conservative values, his appeal to traditional voters and his ability to get preferences from the Shooters and Fishers that pre­vented Pauline Hanson’s first ­attempt to enter the Senate in Queensland and ensured a sixth Senate place for the Coalition. Joyce holds similar appeal today.

John Anderson, who suc­ceeded Fischer, continued the ­coalitionist ­approach without losing the Nat­ionals’ identity. When faced with continual internal ­revolt from Bob Katter, which was threatening ­Anderson’s crucial hold on Queensland, the NSW-based leader cut him adrift, much to Howard’s chagrin.

Joyce, as the new Nationals leader in early 2016, was a natural companion for Tony Abbott as Liberal prime minister and a natural contrast to Malcolm Turnbull, which meant he was able to sell the Nationals as having influence and a separate identity. Under Joyce, the Nationals, who ran a separate campaign to the Liberals in 2016, saved the Coalition government by increasing their seats while the Liberals lost 14.

When McCormack replaced Joyce as leader in February 2018 there were many leadership templates for him to follow. Unfortunately, Turnbull’s own leadership was in trouble, there was bad blood over Turnbull’s role in ­removing Joyce, One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party were on the rise in Queensland, and in NSW the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers were rising on the back of drought, ­dairy ­industry woes and market-driven water shortages.

What’s worse, McCormack was seen as being “Turnbull-lite” and was then superseded in rural Australia when Scott Morrison ­became Prime Minister and declared Queensland and drought as his first priorities.

During the election last year Matt Canavan, then the resources minister, campaigned heavily for coalmining in Queensland, for coal-fired power stations and against the Greens’ anti-Adani mine convoy. He delivered a “yellow vest” revolt against Labor in the vital north where the Coalition retained government.

“How good is Queensland,” ­Morrison declared on his miracle election night, and he could also even have said: “How good is ­Canavan?”

All of this contributed to ­McCormack’s already low profile and increasing internal concern about his ability to stand up to the Liberals, to sell a definite Nationals message, to attract the rising number of voters heading to other parties and to keep control of his MPs.

How McCormack has handled the crises facing him in the past two weeks has only cemented the public impression of him as unable to run his own party. It has convinced colleagues he is subservient to the Liberals, holding on to his leadership only by buying support in ­return for ministerial posts, unable to reconcile differences and ultimately endangering the Coalition’s precarious two-seat majority in parliament.

Bridget McKenzie’s resignation as agriculture minister over her conflict of interest in the sports rorts scandal provided the impetus for dissenters to launch a leadership challenge and for Canavan to resign to support Joyce’s bid.

McCormack’s narrow survival was bad for him. The election of Littleproud to deputy leader, giving him the perfect position from which to move on the leadership, was a sign McCormack’s victory was temporary. The failure to ­attempt reconciliation inflamed the situation, with MPs openly calling for Joyce to challenge again and the leaking of damaging information about Nationals’ travel ­expenses. This all culminated in Labor being able to humiliate ­McCormack and Morrison by ­defeating the government’s choice of deputy Speaker.

The decision of Queensland Liberal National Party MP Llew O’Brien on Tuesday to resign from the Nationals’ partyroom and accept the Labor nomination for the job of deputy Speaker was the final straw for the Liberals, who feared a threat to the Coalition budget agenda.

Morrison stepped in directly to speak to individual Nationals MPs, to appeal for calm and to ­ensure continued support from O’Brien and other prospective Queensland rebels George Christensen and Ken O’Dowd. Everyone pulled back from the abyss of Coalition rupture and minority government, with Canavan and others saying they supported ­McCormack and Joyce suggesting he wouldn’t challenge again.

The expectation now within senior ranks of the Nationals as well as within the senior Liberal leadership is McCormack will have to manage a transition of leadership to Littleproud at some stage. There is no plan, no secret deal or written agreement, but there is an irresistible force that it really is only a matter of timing.

Part of the expectation is Joyce will not challenge Littleproud and will serve as a minister — not even in cabinet — in a new frontbench. For Joyce it would mean he would again be a minister with a platform to appeal to conservative splinter groups as he has so successfully done in the past.

In preparation, Littleproud is being given specific advice on how to improve his performance, ­notably to be less aggressive and, importantly, to “answer the phone” or “return the call” when his colleagues and industry organisations want to talk. The advice that the minister should do away with his thick-rimmed black ­glasses in favour of contact lenses is unlikely to be followed.

While many favour the return of Canavan to cabinet, it is possible he will extend his period on the backbench, concentrating on his campaign for a Nationals identity and policies in northern Queensland, becoming a “mini Bozzie” like his former mentor Boswell, who used his influence in the Coalition to achieve results not possible through cabinet.

For all the expectation, nothing is written in and as McCormack told Inquirer: “I intend to lead the Nationals to the next election. But the leadership is the gift of the partyroom.” But, he adds with his ready smile: “A week is a long time in politics.”

The past two weeks have been a very long time.