Saturday, 28th January, 2006

When you glance at the steady slide in the National Party vote over the last 20 years or so there is a tendency to reach the conclusion that the future for the Party is grim. From a high of 11.5% of the Australian total in 1987 - which represented nearly a quarter of the Liberal-National coalition vote - the National's vote has slumped to under six per cent for three elections in a row. In 2004 only just over one in eight votes for the Coalition came by way of the National Party.

Senator Julian McGauran was doubtless more interested in the National Party performance in Victoria than nationally before he reached his decision to quit and join the Liberals. In Victoria the Nationals are down to the 3-4 per cent level which makes winning a Senate seat extremely difficult. In Western Australia the decline has been even steeper and in South Australia and Tasmania it has never amounted to anything. Only in New South Wales and Queensland is support for the National Party still at a level where winning in the Senate is a probability.

Yet those two east coast states provide plenty of opportunities for the National Party to continue to win enough seats in the House of Representatives, as well as the Senate, for their Liberal partners not to be able to do without them. The real risk for the Coalition is that the anger at McGauran's departure and the dropping of a National Minister in the recent reshuffle will cause at least the Queensland National branch to decide that it will have more influence outside the tent than in it.

The downside for the Queensland National Party parliamentary members should they leave the Coalition would be missing out on the pay and perks of ministerial office. Yet that is of little concern to the party office holders and the rank and file members who are not in a parliament and unlikely to ever be. They are the people who the new boy Senator Barnaby Joyce kept consulting before making up his mind on things like the privatisation of the balance of Telstra. Barnaby knows that ultimately what bread he can butter depends on getting pre-selected even if he has five years to go.

Senator Ron Boswell is well aware of the sentiment within the Queensland National Party that the interests of rural and provincial people can perhaps be served better by Senators prepared not to succumb to the perks of ministerial office. That is the reason that, despite being the National Party Senate Leader, he has not become a Minister. Despite this selfless approach, Senator Boswell finds he has a battle to remain an endorsed Senate candidate. While he has stood outside the formal structure of executive government he has not been prepared to play the public blackmailer like his colleague Senator Joyce. Senator Boswell now has to convince the party pre-selectors that he has had more wins playing his politics behind closed doors than can be achieved by grand standing.

It will he a hard sell.

(A piece written back in April 2005 Blackmailers in the Ranks is still of relevance to this issue.)