Crunch time for the Nationals

THE rise of independents and decline of rural areas leave the Nats in a pickle.

Nationals leader Warren Truss welcomes new MPs to the partyroom in Parliament House. Picture: Ray Strange

FOR years the Nationals have been a party in decline. While at the August 21 federal election it boosted its House of Representatives numbers from 9 to 12 (out of 150 seats), the increase came on the back of decades of lost representation and lost authority within the Coalition.

It is far too early to tell if the growth in Nationals representation is the start of a new trend for the Nationals or symptomatic of a voter backlash against the Labor government, particularly in Queensland.

In 1975, the National Party (then the National Country Party) held 23 of 127 seats in the house. In 1931 it held 16 of 75 seats. During the conservatives' years in power, first under Robert Menzies and later under Malcolm Fraser, figures such as John "Black Jack" McEwen, Peter Nixon and Doug Anthony wielded disproportionate power and influence over national policy.

But the combination of a declining rural population and political threats from all sides saw the Nationals' role as the voice of the bush significantly cut down.

"Always the challenge for the Nationals has been demographics," says former Howard government minister (and son of Doug) Larry Anthony.

"The increasing urbanisation of Australia and the demographic shift to coastal areas has forced the Nationals to reinvent themselves."

Another problem the Nationals face is competing in an increasingly presidential electoral environment. "As we go towards more presidential-style campaigns it is a lot harder for the Nationals to get traction," Anthony says, keen to stress his comments aren't an attack on Warren Truss's leadership. But they do highlight the importance of high-profile mavericks such as Barnaby Joyce for lifting the brand recognition of the Nationals in the modern age.

Now the Nationals are faced with the dilemma of working with three rural independents - Tony Windsor, Bob Katter and Rob Oakeshott, all of whom are disgruntled former Nationals - if they want the Coalition to return to power after last month's election. It begs the question: if the electorate can vote for rural independents and still get a Coalition government, why would regional Australia vote Nationals again?

It is a question being taken seriously by Nationals parliamentarians, and they have answers.

"We killed off the emissions trading scheme," Joyce says. "Without us leading that debate the Coalition wouldn't have gotten to where it is now."

Joyce believes without a single voice for the regions that kind of organised assault on "bad policy" just wouldn't be possible.

One of the difficulties for Nationals is that many parts of regional Australia are unhappy with the free trade provisions both main parties are wedded to, and as the junior partner in the Coalition that means that the Nationals have to argue for unpopular policy against populist rural independents such as Katter, who say a return to protectionism is the path to improved prosperity for the regions. It makes dislodging them electorally very difficult.

If the rural independents do back a minority Coalition government, some Nationals worry they would have disproportionate influence, thus justifying their refusal to stay inside the Nationals tent. On the back of such concerns Nationals senator John Williams told The Australian this week:

"If we're going into the government, the Nationals aren't going to just sit back and watch the money pour into independent seats."

The fear is that the stature of rural independents as representatives who can deliver for their electorates in a way party-bound Nationals can't will only increase the future threat of rural independents in National-held seats.

Anthony doesn't think dealing with the independents as part of a minority government would lead to a widening of support for independents in Nationals territory.

"It might make dislodging them harder, but that was a problem anyway. People don't vote for independents because they think they will get the balance of power."

The alternative would be for the Coalition to offer a deal to the independents that doesn't match Labor's, allowing Julia Gillard to form minority government. Politically, some Nationals might quietly see that as their opportunity to attack the independents at the next election, but it is hardly a case of putting rural interests first to drive the independents to a Labor Party most Nationals believe traditionally neglects regional Australia.

Rural independents do threaten the Nationals' survival, but they aren't the only threat. The Coalition agreement stipulates that when a Liberal or National retires, the Coalition partner can run in the vacated seat.

During the Howard years this was the way the Liberal Party started to slowly consume its junior partner, something it again (unsuccessfully) tried to do at this year's election when it mounted an expensive campaign in the NSW seat of Riverina, following the retirement of Kay Hull.

Estimates put the money spent by both Coalition parties in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, money that could have been used to win NSW marginal seats such as Lindsay, Greenway and Page, which would have given Tony Abbott an outright majority.

The struggle for survival by country-based parties is a global phenomenon. Former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister John Anderson has pointed out the Nationals are the only country-based party left in any Western democracy. The demise of country-based parties is a reflection of the decline of rural populations in Western nations.

Armed with that knowledge, Nationals are trying new things to improve their electoral fortunes. Only recently it trialled an electorate-wide primary to preselect its candidate for the NSW state seat of Tamworth, the former state electorate of one of the three rural independents, Windsor. It attracted 4500 voters, the largest preselection for any party in Australian history.

Truss has said that, on the back of the trial, if the party is successful at winning the seat of Tamworth at the NSW election in March next year, he would consider supporting primaries across other electorates, including at the federal level. Joyce has been even more supportive of the idea, calling for immediate consideration of primaries as a way of combating the rise of rural independents.

Despite its party name, the Nationals are anything but a national organisation. In Western Australia, the Nationals are not in Coalition with the state Liberal government they support, and the newly elected Nationals member for the electorate of O'Connor, Tony Crook, has indicated that he would rather sit on the crossbenches than in the Coalition partyroom.

Crook's defeat of long-time Liberal maverick Wilson Tuckey was perhaps an indication of how well the Nationals can do when they don't declare Coalition allegiance: Crook stated right from the beginning of his campaign that he intended to be an independent National if elected.

Until she lost her seat at the South Australian election earlier this year, the only National in the SA state parliament, Karlene Maywald, was a minister in the Rann Labor government. In Queensland the National Party no longer exists. Instead, the Liberal National Party has been formed, and elected MPs in future parliaments will choose to sit in either the Liberal or National partyrooms when they get to Canberra.

At first glance the inconsistent state-by-state nature of the Nationals might seem typical of a party in decline, but Nationals historian and author of a book on the party's 90-year history, Paul Davey, sees it as a strength.

"It indicates a party able to adapt to changing circumstances, which it historically has been able to do. In Victoria in the 1920s, for example, it governed as a minority with the support of the Labor Party," Davey says.

The changing circumstances now in play for Nationals federally require them to put the bad blood with the rural independents behind them in a bid to form government. To show the independents that a Coalition government would be stable - one of their key criterion for backing either side - Nationals might need to refrain from speaking out against the conservative line being adopted by the Coalition's leadership team.

Such discipline doesn't come naturally to many Nationals, and it would be ammunition for future challenges by rural independents claiming the Nationals don't stand up to their Coalition partner.