Nationals to go local in battleground seats

The return of Barnaby Joyce to the National Party leadership has dramatically shifted the party’s election strategy.

Barnaby Joyce. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The Nationals will target Doug Anthony’s former stronghold dominated by the country party for 80 years, with internal polling revealing the Coalition push into the NSW Hunter region could be repelled at the next election.

Polling commissioned by the Nationals in Queensland, NSW and Victoria following the June leadership spill that returned Barnaby Joyce as leader and Deputy Prime Minister, shows the party holding the central Queensland seat of Capricornia and Victorian regional seat of Nicholls.  The survey of marginal and target seats, polling 1250 people in late July and early August, put the Nationals ahead of Labor in the northern NSW seat of Richmond, which has been held by Justine ­Elliot since she ousted Larry ­Anthony from the Tweed Heads-based electorate in 2004.

 

Senior Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon, who quit Anthony Albanese’s frontbench last year following disputes over climate policy and his outspoken support for coal, is on track to hold the Hunter electorate if he contests the next election.

The Nationals research, conducted by pollster Leanne White, showed Mr Fitzgibbon had ­secured a 5 per cent swing back to him on two-party-preferred vote.

A senior Nationals source said Mr Joyce’s return had dramatically shifted the party’s election strategy, which would centre on hyper-local and targeted campaigns.

“In those northern NSW seats like Page, which we hold, and Richmond – the campaign will need some focus on climate change, the environment,” the source said.

“That means getting candidates and MPs who can connect with those local voters. And how you approach it there will be different in central Queensland and regional Victoria.

“Nationals MPs are seen as best able to balance local environmental protections with the needs of local people and businesses.”

While the weakest Nationals’ voter base remained the 18-34-year-old cohort, a common trend for Coalition parties, the polling and four focus groups listed the top priorities for voters as pandemic management, roads, ­regional health, population man­age­ment, employment, the environ­ment, cost of living, crime, government and politics and aged care and the elderly.

Climate change was ranked the 11th top priority.

According to the polling, incumbent Nationals MPs attracted a net-positive rating of 33 per cent, with regional communities wanting them to be “local champions” for their electorates.

The Nationals vote was strongest in regional Victoria, followed by NSW and Queensland, where it runs under the Liberal National Party banner.

The Australian understands that since Mr Joyce’s return to the leadership, there has been a tick-up in fundraising support ahead of the election, which Coalition strategists increasingly believe will be in March. The Nationals have had to cancel recent oversubscribed fundraising events ­because of travel restrictions.

Mr Joyce, who is scheduled to deliver his first major speech virtually at the National Press Club on Friday, is expected to feature more prominently in areas like central Queensland, where the government must hold the battleground seats of Capricornia, Dawson and Flynn.

With a higher public profile than Michael McCormack, Mr Joyce’s presence during the campaign will lessen the need for Scott Morrison to take a greater role in Nationals electorates. The Prime Minister blitzed Nationals seats until the final days of the 2019 campaign.

The new polling will be of concern to Nationals and Liberal strategists who had been eyeing off Labor-held seats in the Hunter region, including Hunter, Paterson and Shortland.

Previous research commissioned by the Nationals showed 49 per cent of Hunter voters were more likely to vote for a candidate who strongly supported coalmining. Senior Coalition MPs have spent considerable time in the NSW Hunter and central coast areas as part of a pre-election campaign to wrestle seats off Labor at the next election.