Nationals resurgent after a weird weekend on unwanted hustings
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Political junkies might have been delighted with the “Big Weekend In Politics”©, but one suspects the rest of the country found it all a bit trying. None of Saturday’s elections were necessary. All were brought on by the self-indulgence or stupidity of politicians. Which might explain why the results brought no comfort to any of them except the Greens and more independent-minded Nationals. Those were the two groups who did best on Saturday — don’t forget that Rob Oakeshott is a former Nat, and whilst more socially moderate than most of his former colleagues, isn’t all that distinguishable from them. Warren Truss at least quickly got the message from WA, and declared they’d consider leaving the Coalition. They have to think about it — the Nationals are now at the “fire at will” stage of the siege. Everyone thought Oakeshott would win Lyne, but the sheer magnitude of his victory must terrify the Nationals. Oakeshott instantly converted his status as an established State independent — he polled 67% of the primary vote last year — into a huge margin in Lyne, polling 64% of the primary vote on Saturday. The result not merely puts the Coalition one seat further away from victory in 2010, it will encourage more high-profile independents to take a stab at the remaining National Party seats. Maybe they should concentrate on State politics. The issues are smaller and more likely to fit their narrow mindset. When was the last time a National made a useful contribution about the non-farm economy? On defence? Or on climate change? The only climate change Ron Boswell is worried about is global cooling, although given Boswell doesn’t appear to reside on planet Earth, he may be correct. But playing kingmaker at a State level opens up vast pork-barrelling possibilities. Brendon Grylls’s “royalties for regions” proposal, which would deliver 25% of mining royalties — currently around $700m — for pork-barrelling, would amount to one of the biggest heists in state political history. If either Labor or the Liberals had an ounce of integrity, they’d refuse to cooperate. Which of course means both are desperately courting him. The Greens got a swing in WA as well, but it was in Mayo that they gave the Liberals a scare. Senator Bob Brown declared the “disintegration of the two-party system in Australia”, which might be a trifle premature. Jamie Briggs will limp into Parliament having suffered a 10.5% swing and the ignominy of converting a blue-ribbon seat into a marginal. But rather than the two-party system disintegrating, it was because the Greens campaigned smarter than the Liberals. They picked up on widespread concern about the Lower Lakes and Coorong and never stopped talking about it, demanding action, commencing a Senate inquiry. The Liberals’ response was insipid and missed the point — Brendan Nelson called for a $50m package to “support” the affected communities. It was too small to get any cut-through — despite Greg Hunt explaining that it was money that had already been appropriated for the Murray-Darling Basin, a significantly bigger package would’ve again drawn attention to the Liberals’ dwindling economic credentials. And in effect it offered a bribe to the communities in the region to cop the death of the Lakes sweet. The Greens’ position — get water to “give the Coorong a drink by Christmas” — was far smarter, simpler politics, and that’s why they ran the Liberals so close. Now that they have party status federally, and the resources that come with it, the Greens will be able to do more of this — maintaining a profile, influencing the debate, slowly lifting their status so that voting for the Greens stops being a protest vote or one-off decision and starts becoming a more solid , reliable source of electoral support. “In Mayo, it’s a great result for us to be able to hold the seat,” Nelson said yesterday. Sadly, he’s right — for him, things are so grim that even hanging onto a blue-ribbon seat is a “great result”. At least the Liberals aren’t facing political oblivion like the Nationals are. But they might if they stick with this bloke. |
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12 Comments
The Nationals at Federal level are in terminal decline. Bereft of any talent, and exposed to conservative leaning independents and the odd Liberal, they will cease to exist in any meaningful form unless they provide some clear indication to the electorate that they aren’t just Liberals with akubras on, and demonstrate their worth beyond being the farm lobby. For a start why not get some advice from Lee Kernaghan?
As a disgruntled Mayo voter I agree with most of your analysis. However, one point you overlooked is that Briggs was the Libs choice to run. Our local candidates were completely overlooked as the machine parachuted a loser in, a loser whose advice to our last Prime Minister - now has us listening to the monotonal Rudd. Instead of somone local and fresh we got the same tired old dross. Im still angry.
The vote was down because a lot of people didn’t know it was election day. A lot of people came up to us on the polling booth and asked whether it was compulsory to vote at a by-election (!), either because they didn’t want to vote or because they knew others who didn’t want to vote.
I know my brother (who forgot to vote, along with his partner) thought the election must have been coming up on another Saturday because the local primary school, which is normally a polling booth, was deserted. He just stayed in all morning and in the afternoon watched the Crows on the telly and then found out afterwards that he should have voted!
I suspect a lot of others did the same. It’s all the Downer’s fault for forcing a by-election during the footy finals…
The Liberal vote in blue-ribbon Mayo was much more than decimated. The Liberals aren’t facing political oblivion but Brendan Nelson is.
Leave the Dwarf out of it, Jim. He can’t help being vertically challenged. At least he’s still staying sober. But Glenn Milne is right about Mayo. Brendan Nelson is to blame because he is a policy vacuum. The electorate won’t support a candidate whose leader stands for nothing except economic vandalism and social repression.
Thanx Lucy….
“Everyone thought Oakeshott would win Lyne” but Bernard you should have let your colleague Alex Mitchell in on the ‘secret’ before he wrote in last Thursday’s Crikey:
“The Nationals have chosen registered nurse and former teacher Leslie Williams, a widely admired and well respected community activist, as their candidate and she should win.”
And I don’t know about limiting their ambitions to state troughs The Nationals porkbarreling has been extraordinarily successful on the commonwealth stage for so long…..but you are right these weekend electins and those in The Northern Territory “were brought on by the self-indulgence or stupidity of politicians” and they and/or their respective political parties have paid the price.
Well done the Aussie electorate!
AngloGuy has just re-iterated Glenn Milne’s position. Unlike the dwarf I don’t believe Nelson’s position will be influenced one iota by the Mayo result. I suspect there are other far more powerful factors at work.
David Libits is right about the libs preselection process in Mayo - a lot of locals were mad as cut snakes that long standing local liberals were overlooked. But I argue that the ‘local issue’ of the murray is a national issue also. But what about the 25% who did not turn out to vote! (Plus the informals)
The ALP not running a candidate at all, not even a ‘dead’ candidate, would have seen a lot of rusted on true believers, who would never vote green, not waste the petrol to drive to a polling booth. An extra 5% left vote preference flow would have elected the Green. Good grief Browns declaration of the end of the two party system based on Mayo is an out of this world joke when ALP did not run. Where is Christian Kerr when you need him?
The Nats are running Leslie Williams in the byelection for the State seat of Port Macquarie, not for the Federal seat of Lyne.
Methinks Dave Liberts hit the nail on the head. I’m all for sober dwarves …..especially pommy dwarves
I can shed a bit of light on that one JamesK - I’ve never lived in Mayo but I’ve always lived near its borders. The electorate is extremely politically aware, and although it always returns Liberal MPs, its population is generally more small-l than big-L. There was quite a bit of scandal about the Liberal preselection battle courtesy of SA powerbrokers Minchin and Pyne (as well as Downer himself getting up to his elbows) which was well covered in local media. Then the election itself was fought on purely local issues because there was no Labor candidate for the Liberals to target themselves on. Combine these issues with the general disaffection at Downer’s resignation less than a year into the Parliamentary term, and it’s not hard to see how the Liberal vote collapsed. I’d say it had nothign at all to do with Nelson, other than it can probably be concluded that he’s not considered a superstar. No news there.