Nats’ seat saver now gets to fight alongside popular PM

Barnaby Joyce is poised to go to his second election as Nationals leader, but this time alongside a popular prime minister — in a stark contrast to 2016.

The prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, left, with Barnaby Joyce, after the New England by-election in 2017. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Barnaby Joyce is poised to go to his second election as Nationals leader, but this time alongside a popular prime minister in a stark contrast to 2016 when the junior Coalition party avoided losing any seats as Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberals collapsed on the urban fringes.

Mr Joyce gained a reputation as a poll winner in 2016 when he held back the anti-Turnbull swing in ­regional Australia and held onto every Nationals seat – compared to the Liberals losing 14 seats in that contest – leading some to consider him the Coalition’s saviour that year.

But the ousted Michael McCormack can also claim electoral success, having overseen massive two-party-preferred swings towards some of his MPs during his leadership of the Nationals, and he also had fewer MPs considering retirement.

At least two Nationals – Queenslanders Ken O’Dowd and George Christensen – are stepping down at the next election and are taking significant personal vote margins with them.

Former Nationals state director Scott Mitchell on Monday said Mr Joyce won the 2016 election for the Coalition, but warned that retirements could hinder any attempts to recreate his past glories later this year or in early 2022.

“They were very different elections. Barnaby certainly won the 2016 election. The 2019 election was more of a joint effort between the Liberals and the Nationals,” Mr Mitchell said. “The next election will be a seat-by-seat contest. Barnaby could repeat the successes in 2016, but it depends on how many more retirements we get.”

 

Mr Joyce held onto all 15 lower-house Nationals seats in 2016 – and won the seat of Murray off the Liberals following the retirement of Sharman Stone – but the party did see a number of negative swings against it, especially in Queensland seats such as Flynn and Capricornia.

Then-prime minister Mr Turnbull had negative Newspoll approval ratings from March 2016 up until the election in July that year, and was considered an electoral hindrance in regional and outer-suburban areas. Scott Morrison, on the other hand, has had positive ratings since the pandemic began in 2020, and was considered to be especially popular in Nationals areas in the 2019 poll.

Mr McCormack was a beneficiary of Mr Morrison’s popularity and there were two-party preferred swings of up to 12 per cent in Nationals-held seats at the last election in 2019. But many of those swings were propelled by the success of One Nation – with the Nationals’ primary votes moving little – and Mr McCormack was facing electoral difficulties.

In the Queensland coalmining seat of Capricornia, the Nationals’ two-party-preferred vote increased by 11.7 percentage points even through the party’s primary vote rose by only 0.6 points. In neighbouring Dawson, the Nationals received a two-party swing of 11.2 percentage points, while their primary vote was up only 0.3 per cent.

The retirements of Mr O’Dowd in Flynn, who won in 2019 with a margin of 8.7 per cent, and Mr Christensen in Dawson (14.6 per cent) have already raised concerns as popular MPs can sometimes have up to five percentage points worth of personal vote margins, and the Coalition is at a high water mark in Queensland.

Potential added retirements such as that of Mr McCormack – who said on Monday he might consider leaving politics – could also leave Mr Joyce’s election campaign vulnerable.

But recent election results suggest Mr Joyce’s MPs are at more threat from crossbenchers than Labor. The ALP has not won a ­Nationals-held seat since Kevin Rudd led Labor to victory in 2007, picking up Dawson and Flynn in Queensland and Page in NSW.

The last time the Nationals lost a seat they traditionally held in the House of Representatives was when independent Rob Oakeshott won Lyne, in NSW, at a by-election triggered by the resignation of former leader Mark Vaile. Mr Oakeshott retained the seat at the 2010 election but the Nationals won it back in 2013.