On balance, Nats see benefit in standing alone in Western Australia

THE focus on the forthcoming West Australian election has almost exclusively been on the major parties and the agendas each is promoting.

THE focus on the forthcoming West Australian election has almost exclusively been on the major parties and the agendas each is promoting.

But the role of the Nationals may be important if a close election brings with it a hung parliament.

Leaked internal Labor polling has indicated the Government is facing a 7per cent swing against it. If the polling is accurate, rather than just a sneaky attempt to claim underdog status, that would be enough for Labor to lose its majority.

But the shift in voter sentiment may not be enough to deliver the Liberal Party a working majority of its own.

This is the scenario in which the Nationals could find themselves taking centre stage.

Traditionally, the WA Nationals have been in coalition with the Liberal Party. They currently hold five seats in the Legislative Assembly and one in the Legislative Council.

But the introduction of one-vote one-value legislation after the 2005 election threatened the survival of the state Nationals. The notional boundaries drawn up by the West Australian Electoral Commission reduced the Nationals to just two seats out of 59 in the lower house.

The removal of six seats from regional WA, replaced with eight seats in the Perth metro area, forced sitting Nationals to run against current Liberal and Labor members in rural areas.

A party with a proud history dating back to 1913 looked likely to lose its party status, which requires five seats and gives a party an enormous funding boost.

Enter the new leader of the Nationals, Brendon Grylls. He took over as party leader after the Coalition's 2005 election defeat and has set about carving out a unique role for his party. He hopes to win the balance of power in the lower house, determine which major party forms government and, as a result, increase his party's bargaining power on policies for regional WA.

This is a powerful message for Nationals to campaign on.

The Nationals are contesting only the 11 lower house seats outside the Perth metro and WA southwest areas. They have been running television and radio advertisements in these electorates for months, taking the view that without such a pre-election campaign, their message would not be heard. It was a good tactic that also meant the Nationals were well prepared for the surprise early calling of the election.

Ordinarily, the Nationals would be expected to join with the Liberals to form a government if Labor lost its majority. The leader of the Nationals would become deputy premier and a brace of Nationals MPs would sit in Colin Barnett's ministry.

But Grylls has clearly stated he will not be seeking such an outcome.

Instead, he intends to force a Dutch auction with both major parties when it comes to his "Royalties for Regions" plan, the aim of which is to guarantee through legislation that a quarter of all mining royalties are spent on regional WA.

Services in remote communities are appalling, despite the wealth generated for the state from the mining boom. The Nationals may therefore succeed in winning support from soft Labor voters in remote townships, frustrated by the lack of investment in their daily lives.

The Nationals initially attempted to win support for their royalties plan as part of preference negotiations with the major parties. But that attempt was stared down, rightly labelled a pre-election stunt by Barnett.

But under the scenario of a hung parliament, the bargaining power of the Nationals would be much stronger.

Nobody could accuse the Nationals of consistency when it comes to their state divisions. In NSW and Victoria, they are in coalition with the Liberals. In Queensland, they have merged to form the Liberal National Party. In South Australia, the Nationals' only member of parliament has been appointed a minister in the Labor Government, while in WA they are a stand-alone party.

Liberals should never have allowed their relationship with their one-time coalition partner to come to this. In the wake of one-vote one-value legislation, they should have forced an agreement that ensured both parties continued to work together. By not doing so, Liberals are fighting three-cornered contests and wasting valuable resources on conservative rural electorates.

Nevertheless, Labor would be well aware that if a hung parliament did eventuate, it is far more likely the Nationals would support a minority Liberal government than a minority Labor government. But it will come down to which party offers country WA a better deal.

On the east coast, the Nationals are under siege from rural independents, seen as stronger representatives for regional communities. If the Nationals' strategy in WA works, it will give eastern state Nationals something to think about.

Peter van Onselen is an associate professor of politics and government at Edith Cowan University