Comments on: Mungo: We are witnessing the last days of the Nationals

By: davo

davo — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I went to a lecture once in which the lecturer said “never predict the death of a political party until it’s got the stake through its heart and is covered in garlic’. The recent resurgence of the DLP (for God’s sake!) demonstrates this. So Mungo, nice article, but don’t be disappointed.

By: Nic

Nic — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

While you article was otherwise good - do you perhaps concede that your prediction 38 years ago of the demise of the then Country Party was wrong?

By: Peter Fuller

Peter Fuller — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Mungo’s memory has failed him, with respect to the chronology of Whitlam’s successes in Capricornia and Dawson.
Rex Patterson won Dawson (previously held by the Country Party) in a by-election in 1966, thanks almost entirely to Whitlam’s (then Deputy-Leader) intervention. Remarkably, he managed to hold the seat in the wake of the Labor wipe-out at the general election nine months later. Capricornia was a Labor seat, which was at risk in a by-election in 1967, following the death of the MP. Doug Everingham comfortably held the seat, which was an important early success for Whitlam’s new order.
The Dawson victory was crucially timed, just before an attempt by Labor’s Federal Executive to expel Whitlam. He was saved when the Queensland delegates to the meeting (one week after the by-election) voted against the proposal, because of Whitlam’s crucial role in Patterson’s victory.
(Separate piece of trivia, which should probably be edited out, but to my discredit, it amused me).
The new licensed lottery firm operating in Victoria uses the slogan the Luck Factory. A billboard near my place has proved too tempting for an artistic vandal, who carefully changed the first letter in Luck. It’s the best I’ve seen since the halcyon days of Buga-Up defacing smoking billboards.

By: duffer

duffer — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

“Whatever tenuous grasp they held in Western Australia and South Australia has long since been slipped away”

“In Victoria, for instance, they actually spent some time in coalition with Labor.”

Er, Mungo, ever heard of Karlene Maywald?

By: Venise Alstergren#2

Venise Alstergren#2 — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Nic: Mungo’s prediction was correct; it’s just that it is a slower process than anyone could have imagined. (The merger of the Nationals with the Liberal Party in QLD will hasten the process.) In the 1920s in America they had a rural party which was very strong; so strong, in fact, that they decided to field a candidate for the Presidency. Not only did the candidate fail, but he brought down this Party with a resounding crash.

The rurals are part of the agrarian civilization, whereas we have gone well beyond the age in 2008 speak of the industrial revolution. Not known for their intellectual input, the farmers have done more to eff up the country as far as laying waste to everything they have ever touched, that the people in the big cities are being always slugged in tax, for all their mishaps. Of course all of our political parties have always gone out on a limb to help the Nats. They may be unable to read, but, by Crikey, they can still vote. And one of these days someone will work out how much harm they have done, rather than prattling on about their ability to feed our nation. They have only ever fed anyone thanks to protectionism, and it’s time they were brought to heel.