Comments on: Nationals resurgent after a weird weekend on unwanted hustings

By: Warwick Capper

Warwick Capper — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

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?

By: Roy Ramage

Roy Ramage — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

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.

By: Mayo girl

Mayo girl — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

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…

By: AngloGuy

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

The Liberal vote in blue-ribbon Mayo was much more than decimated. The Liberals aren’t facing political oblivion but Brendan Nelson is.

By: ShortAngloGuy

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

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.

By: JamesK

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

Thanx Lucy….

By: JamesK

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

“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!

By: JamesK

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

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.

By: Lisa Crago

Lisa Crago — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

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?

By: Lucy

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

The Nats are running Leslie Williams in the byelection for the State seat of Port Macquarie, not for the Federal seat of Lyne.

By: JamesK

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

Methinks Dave Liberts hit the nail on the head. I’m all for sober dwarves …..especially pommy dwarves

By: Dave Liberts

Dave Liberts — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

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.