Barnaby Joyce: in spite of Liberal slurs, he’s entitled to his views

Eric Lobbecke illustration for Inquirer 17-07-2015.

The Nationals at the federal level are a shadow of their former selves. The federal director takes his marching orders from the Liberals’ director Brian Loughnane, while the chief of staff to Warren Truss takes his from Peta Credlin.

Once upon a time the party of the bush (and now the so-called “regions”) stood up to its larger Coalition partner, the Liberal Party. It rarely happens anymore, especially in government. But the reasons are more complicated than a decline in the representative size of the country party.

This week, yet again, saw serious attempts at white-anting the internal mechanics of the Nationals, by Liberal MPs and senators who philosophically disagree with the policy positioning of the most high profile National MP, Barnaby Joyce.

Let me be quite clear, the agrarian socialist tendencies of many Nationals isn’t a policy script I ascribe to, that’s for sure. Fears surrounding foreign investment (with the exception of state-owned enterprises) aren’t fears I share with Nationals such as Joyce.

Exceptionalism for farmers doesn’t accord with my market liberal values. But that doesn’t mean Joyce is not entitled to hold the views he does, and it certainly doesn’t put him out of step with his rural and regional constituencies. Concerns on these fronts don’t make Joyce xenophobic, a slur hurled his way from within the Coalition.

The Nationals have become obsequious to the Liberal Party, partly because of the perception modern campaigning requires a professional, “on message”, team effort. Public disagreements are discouraged, and certainly not seen as part of the battle of ideas. They are reported as division, meaning the media has had a hand (indirectly) in the slow ­capitulation of the party. Even private disagreements are discouraged, lest they go public, weakening the line ultimately adopted.

In the Howard years the Nationals gave policy ground to the Liberals time and time again, and the party paid an electoral price. In 1996, the Nationals won 18 lower house seats as part of the Coalition government, not too far off the high watermark of representation in the 1960s and 70s. When Howard lost office in 2007, the Nationals won just 10 seats.

The steady decline, even when the Liberals were rebuilding after the difficult 1998 election, saw seats lost to independents, Labor and even the Liberals when Nationals MPs retired.

The junior Coalition partner was slowly being bred out of parliamentary existence, and today it’s hard to gauge Nationals representation given the Queensland amalgamation of the conservative parties, notwithstanding improved fortunes in NSW.

The easy assumption the Nationals have lost their voice within the Coalition because of a diminishing share of seats, as well as a decline in the nationwide vote, misses the bigger issue: once-powerful voices within the party no longer dominate representative ranks.

The Nationals have become a pale imitation of those who represented the party in bygone eras, not standing up sufficiently for the values of the regions against market liberalism within the major Coalition partner. The transformation of the Liberal Party in the late 1980s and early 90s occurred right at a time when the Nationals started to lose their way.

Joyce fights against the lost authority of the party within the Coalition, and for his troubles puts up with media backgrounding from Liberal colleagues that the Chinese are expressing “concerns” he could become trade minister and deputy prime minister one day. This story aired on ABC radio during the week. At issue are Joyce’s attacks on Greg Hunt’s decision over the Shenhua project in his electorate. Hand in glove with criticisms of Joyce’s conduct is the strategic worry a Tony Abbott/Joyce ticket might put voters off. Two too many mavericks running the country, so say the apparatchiks.

I’d suggest the Liberals spend their collective time worrying about their own leader’s lack of ideological support for Liberal values — especially in the economic sphere — rather than voicing concerns about Joyce doing what Nationals should, and standing up for the regions.

If the Chinese have expressed concerns about Joyce, these are sentiments we should ignore. China, after all, is an authoritarian regime that hardly values democratic principles. Largest trading partner or not, interference in our democratic polity is not to be ­tolerated.

In the heady days of the 1970s and early 80s, the Nationals were a powerful voice inside the ­Coalition. Shortly after Billy ­McMahon became PM he was forced to give in to the demands of new Nationals leader Doug Anthony to devalue the currency to help farmers, lest Anthony break the Coalition.

His predecessor as leader, John “Black Jack” McEwen, was well known for policy strength, standing up to Robert Menzies. ­McEwen had an effective veto over government decision-­making in the post-Menzies era.

Malcolm Fraser used to invite Anthony to his office for regular evening drinks during sitting weeks. Theirs was a genuine partnership. Fraser asked senior Nationals minister Peter Nixon to deliver the bad news to Phillip Lynch that he was being dumped as treasurer in 1977, to be replaced by Howard. I doubt any National today would be entrusted with such a task, just as no Liberal would consider a National delivering the news appropriate.

It was an era when the Nationals were prepared to put representing their electorates ahead of the Coalition speaking with one voice. And the party was respected, perhaps even feared, within the Coalition because of it. Remember, the rise of the rural independent, and defections from the Nationals to the crossbenches, is a recent phenomenon, borne out of weakness.

Joyce is the first National in a generation to seriously try to buck this trend, but he can’t do it alone. Witness the reaction: less than two years into the life-cycle of the Coalition government Joyce is already being sidelined within his portfolio, putting up with micromanaging by the Prime Minister’s Office in the lead-up to the (delayed) release of the response to the agriculture white paper.

Much of what Joyce wanted included was left on the cutting-room floor.

Now Liberals are lining up alternative leadership options for when Truss retires (expected sooner rather than later). The names being mentioned, while honourable, would be equally at home in the Liberal Party.

The amalgamation of the Coalition parties in Queensland, in time, will resemble a takeover, with the size of the LNP in Brisbane dwarfing former Nationals strongholds around the state. And having moved to the seat of New England, Joyce is no longer a representative of the Sunshine State, where he might have bucked this trend.

There is a template for Nationals success, in the west where former leader Brendon Grylls broke free of the Coalition to save the party, at a time when electoral reform risked wiping out most MPs in the state legislature. Independence from a formal Coalition during opposition allowed Grylls to develop the royalties for regions policy, which he implemented after Colin Barnett won the 2008 election, with Nationals support. At the last state election in Western Australia the Nationals dramatically increased their rep­resentation, in both chambers. There is talk Grylls may move into federal politics. Joyce could use another strong Nat, built in the mould of yesteryear.

To be sure, breaking the Coalition nationally may not be the junior partner’s best strategy, but the party needs the Liberals to believe such a threat exists. Otherwise, Nationals will keep being walked all over, and the party’s most powerful MP federally, who walks, talks and acts like a McEwen, Nixon or Anthony, will be passed over as leader. Why? Because Liberals want another who they can control.

Peter van Onselen is a professor at the University of Western Australia.