Barnaby Joyce is right that the Nationals should speak up. But not to serve his ambition

Extract from The Guardian

National party

Gabrielle Chan

Australia needs a strong country party, but the Nationals are all about coal, not food production

@gabriellechan

Tue 4 Feb 2020 12.32 AEDT Last modified on Tue 4 Feb 2020 14.07 AEDT

Barnaby Joyce’s challenge was about fulfilling his own ambition, but he’s not wrong about the problems the National party faces. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Michael McCormack has won. For the time being. But Barnaby Joyce is nothing if not an opportunist. Like a rat up a drainpipe, he will watch for the next opening.
And if the rumoured close numbers are correct, that won’t take long. Joyce will be back and he has nuanced his messaging for the new political climate.
“It is a tough game at the moment; we are being attacked on all sides, whether it’s Shooters and Fishers, One Nation, whether it’s independents, we have to speak with our own voice in an honest and forthright way because that is actually how we will keep a Coalition government,” Joyce said this week.

And he is right on that point, even if he is so wrong for any leadership position in very many ways.
But if the sports rorts saga has raised any one single question, it is: what is the actual point of the National party these days?

Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely see a need for a strong country party. But the National party is not doing the job that a country party needs to do.
Rural Australia is experiencing unprecedented conditions including drought and bushfires. Communities and landscapes are running out of water. There are changing global trade conditions challenging those of us in export industries, what with Brexit, the spreading coronavirus and the US-China trade stand off.
Rural people are feeling under siege. In some cases they are scared. They need to know rural leaders have their back. They need to know their leaders will be steady and trustworthy.
There are farmers and townspeople who have lost everything to the bushfires. There are small towns where they have lost half the houses. Meanwhile Barnaby Joyce is focused on getting his old job back.
As one farmer texted on Monday, “farmers going broke in drought and burning and the idiots are having a chest-pumping competition”.

This whole leadership spill was kicked off by the so-called #sportsrorts story, the arc of which is familiar by now.
There was clear evidence of a Nationals minister funding less-deserving cases (according to Sport Australia) in marginal Liberal and Labor seats, while doing some of the National party’s most merit-worthy and loyal voters in the eye.
After the ballot, McCormack said he did not expect Joyce to challenge again and kept repeating – like a mantra – “we will move on and work hard together”.
But the instability will continue. And now McCormack has another putative leader as deputy, David Littleproud.
McKenzie was not a leadership threat because she is a senator and could not have visibility as a leader from that house. McCormack has worked hard to keep Littleproud at arm’s length.
So with Joyce on one side and Littleproud on the other, McCormack’s job is not going to get any easier. But what is that job exactly?
Rural electorates are tinder dry, as dry as the parched paddocks that their voters deal with. As dry as the Australian landscapes that have burned since winter.
As Joyce said, the party’s threats include largely state-based parties on the right but also the outbreak of more centrist independents who are agitating for action on the climate crisis.
They are making inroads into safe electorates, pushing voters not accustomed to having wide electoral competitions to make a choice.
The big take-home lesson from the sports rorts was that these sporting clubs failed to get funding because they were too safe. Nationals have told their voters in no uncertain terms to make them marginal.
There are fundamental policy challenges ahead for rural Australia, yet the National party has no answers and has done no work.
Their climate change policy is non-existent as farmers increasingly deal with drought, bushfires and floods.
Most of their electorates are significant producers of food, yet there is no coherent policy on food production, just plenty of talk about coal.
As he resigned from cabinet this week to back Joyce, the former resources minister Matt Canavan said that regional Australians had “struggled to get our voice heard” and the Nationals needed to stop “city-based commentators” dominating debates affecting regional constituents, such as the future of coal.
Remember last year, under questioning from The Project’s Waleed Aly, McCormack could not think of a single time he backed farmers over miners.

This party is about coal. Not food production.
Then there is the personality club. Since the rise of Joyce, the party has splintered and factionalised. Joyce has used those factions to his advantage. His challenge was about fulfilling his own ambition. There is no show without Barnaby.
As he said before the ballot: “What I will look for is the future with the party. Two years out from an election and two years from the previous change and before we go back to parliament, if there is a time for consideration, this is it.”
So here is yet another fork in the road – a chance to consider what we want out of our rural representation.
The lesson for rural Australia and for the National party is this: the crossbench has proved the power of independent influence, mustering the major parties by using tight numbers. Cathy McGowan designed legislation for a national integrity commission. Kerryn Phelps designed legislation for medical evacuations from Manus. Power comes from standing apart.
With the deep polarisation in the electorate, tight election wins are not disappearing any time soon. An independent party is a powerful party. Joyce has signalled that influence lies in greater separatism from the Liberals, even if his direction is all about his own ambition.

Rural Australia should at least take that on board. This leadership spill has shown that you have influence. Use it.