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Division in The Nationals

Tuesday, 30 th May, 2006

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie must be chuckling. The talk of merger between the National and Liberal parties in his State is creating the circumstances that should see him safely re-elected.

The purpose of the coming together of the two conservative parties is to present a united front to fight Labor. Yet it is now clear that the front is hardly united.

The respective party administrators might want it to happen but there are many in both parties who do not.

Leading the opposition forces are National Party federal parliamentarians who, as I wrote yesterday, realise that their personal preferment depends on them remaining a separate political identity. Self interest is rarely beaten in a political race and this one looks like being no different.

Then there are the individual members of the Queensland Liberal Party who are just realising that in a merger they might keep the Liberal Party name but lose everything else. The Nationals would bring over a membership of 12,000 that would swamp the 4,000 who currently pay their Liberal dues.

Many voters in an increasingly cosmopolitan Brisbane would surely react with horror at the prospect of voting for a party dominated by country red necks.