Comment

John Hewson
The Coalition split: ‘It’s not me, it’s you’

The memes began with, “We need to talk.” Then the internet lit up with a flood of break-up staples providing a weary electorate with perhaps some much-needed comic relief. “We’ve grown apart.” “We want different things.” And of course, frighteningly, “I think we should start seeing other people.” By Thursday, the 80-year relationship could be best described as “off again, on again”.

What does this all mean?

An opportunistic Nationals leader, David Littleproud has announced his decision to split from the Liberal Party and end the longstanding Coalition agreement. The Nationals have declared they are willing to sit on the backbench, for quite naive and spurious reasons. They wish to remain committed to policies that were fundamental to the smashing of the Liberal Party in the recent election, and to operate without cabinet solidarity into the next.

This has made me cast my mind back to the halcyon days of the Nationals’ influence in the years of the Fraser government (1975-83) and to my very effective working relationship with Tim Fischer, who led the Nationals, in the early 1990s. Doug Anthony, Ian Sinclair and Peter Nixon were among the stars of Malcolm Fraser’s cabinet, in terms of their intellect and performance and the trust that I observed the prime minister had in them. These were relationships beyond the formal Coalition agreement. They were part of a committed team and they approached their responsibilities as such.

This generation of the National Party has been devoid of such talent and commitment, and it shows in their performance. It’s most conspicuous in the recent sniping about sustaining the Coalition, and their conditions for a new agreement. Their demand that they, as shadow ministers, be allowed to express views opposing positions taken by the shadow cabinet sadly ignores the old mantra of Bob Hawke, in relation to the John Howard–Andrew Peacock years, that disunity is death in politics – if you can’t govern yourselves, you can’t govern the country.

Crowing over having retained their seats simply doesn’t tell the story. It wasn’t enough. The Nationals didn’t make the contributions they should have made to the team, as a true Coalition. They differentiated their product when in direct competition with a Liberal candidate, and simply hadn’t done the detailed policy work behind the policies they forced Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party to adopt. Littleproud, Bridget McKenzie, Matt Canavan and Kevin Hogan were not up to the job. Indeed, McKenzie in an interview on the ABC’s Insiders program almost undermined Dutton’s fuel excise policy by basically admitting they planned a road user charge. Was this simply incompetence or was this actually their agenda?

Quite frankly the Nationals are still a country party, which really doesn’t resonate with today’s Australia, representing only the views of a few. The romance of the Australian image of “living off the sheep’s back” is no more. For too long, we have laboured under the myth that Australians owe the Nationals’ small constituency a living. Every time there is a drought, a flood or a bushfire, the government has swung in to bolster and bail out. In short, we are a country that values and strongly supports our farmers. The host of small businesses across the country that employ most Australians have simply not enjoyed such support. Australia today needs holistic solutions, with concern for all those in need. We want to be a country with a heart, not one selective with its assistance.

Although the National Party has tried to broaden its perception of Australia by attempting to represent the mining sector, this may well have more to do with their desire to attract donations from the big miners than with their commitment to the associated communities. This has led the Nationals to support fossil fuels and ultimately nuclear, which is inconsistent with the Liberal Party’s view on the urgency of climate change.

It’s unfortunate that the policy formulation process in the National Party seems to stem, as ever, from a few blokes sitting around having a chat in some country pub, rather than the more mundane processes involving hard work and real research. The inadequacies of their approach were never more evident than in the last campaign, where candidates were unable to provide any detail to back up their declared policies. Loudly declaring that nuclear was the answer, their candidates spruiked with great confidence the benefits of a nuclear future they could neither cost nor explain. Enthusiastically endorsed by the equally uninformed Sky News dream team and talkback radio mouthpieces, the misinformation against all global evidence was staggering.

It seemed that everyone was suddenly an expert on nuclear. The reality is that if Australia was actually going to embrace this form of energy, it should have happened about 20 years ago. The private sector wasn’t interested back then, as they haven’t been in recent times. The Nationals just didn’t seem to hear the increasingly loud calls from the electorate to “please explain”.

A new marriage, perhaps? All this seems to be suggesting that the National Party is looking for a new bride, and One Nation’s Pauline Hanson has declared she’s available. This seems, frankly, to make sense. Their policy ideas and social attitudes seem to be more aligned than whatever it was that the former Coalition was struggling to be.

It is misplaced to say the new Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, should simply have given in to them. Good on her for standing firm – she simply had to bring an end to the tail wagging the dog. She needs to reposition the Liberal Party to win back city seats and not just country seats. I sympathise with her difficulties, particularly that of having to pick a shadow cabinet from among only the Liberals, but she is now able to avoid the inevitable trade-offs with the Nationals. This could be a real opportunity to rebuild and reposition the Liberal brand. It would behove the party to unify strongly behind Ley and give her the support that will be so fundamental to an election win. They must get behind her and put the party ahead of individual shallow ambition. No one should play who is not prepared to be part of the team.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic9G6MvPtQM&ab_channel=TheSaturdayPaper

Ley is far better off not having to worry about the Nationals’ probable white-anting. It was tough enough, surely, for Peter Dutton to endure the constant interactions with National Party cowboys going rogue on Sky News after dark.

The Nationals insisted on four major policy areas being left unchanged from the last election platform. Cutting through all this, they simply didn’t want the Liberals to take any action on climate change. In the face of the electorate’s clear preference for decisive steps on climate, it would be a death knell for the Liberals to persist with their junior partner’s regressive attitudes. Delay, denial and anti-science cannot be a position. The transition to clean energy is inevitable. The Liberal Party must embrace the enormous opportunities of a cost-effective shift.

Toward the end of a tumultuous week, reports emerged that the Nationals and Liberals were talking about getting back together. Their significant policy rifts will require extensive counselling.

But what is the alternative for the two parties? Splitting would guarantee electoral oblivion for both, as neither can win in their in their own right. And what would the Nationals’ possible future look like? I see a party marching decisively further to the right, cheered along by Pauline Hanson, under a banner of Make Australia Great Again. An inconceivable future for the modern-day Liberal Party.

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