Twice as much confusion in His Majesty’s Opposition
The National Party is once again holding back the conservative side of politics. The rump is wagging the dog. This time it’s over the Opposition’s involvement in legislation about hate speech.
It was always thus. In the Federal election of 1922 the Nationalist Party, the main middle-class non-Labor party of the time, lost the absolute majority it had held since its formation in 1917. It could only stay in office with the support of the two-year-old Country Party.
In1982, with Doug Anthony as Leader, that two-year-old became the National Party. Every day since then it has been torn between two roles. One as a special interest group representing the interests of ‘agriculture’, variously defined. The other as a party trying to broaden its membership and its advocacy sufficiently to justify its continued existence.
The Nationals have always depended on the Liberal Party to give them a share in the responsibilities and rewards of government. Historically the loyalty of the Liberals to their junior partner cannot be faulted. On a number of occasions when the Liberal party has won a Parliamentary majority in its own right it has kept the Coalition arrangements in place.
Some of the key decisions about the Nationals’ role in the Coalition, such as the distribution of Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet posts, have been made in secret by the two leaders. There has never been a National Party MP as Prime Minister. Some of its leaders have been anonymous, others infamous for the wrong reasons.
When Ben Chifley’s Cabinet sat around the table in 1948 planning the development of a new nation, it was no doubt useful to have some there only because they had a rural address. Without them the critical role of agriculture might have been submerged in considerations relating to the main population centres.
But this time has passed. Location alone is a sufficient criterion for a special interest group but not for a political party. And the very existence of two conservative parties creates unnecessary and avoidable confusion.
The failure of the National Party to differentiate itself from the Liberals means that it has in effect been a rump.
The relationship between the two parties has never been more sternly tested than it is now. It reflects the position of a friend of mine who is pleased to say that he is dating his ex-wife. And now the relationship of the two parties is being further compromised by the arrival on the scene of a slightly tipsy and disoriented uncle.
There may be a silver lining to these machinations. At last one of the doyens of conservative politics is stating publicly that the current arrangements of conservative parties are untenable:
“It is chaotic – I watch it and I think it’s a bit like your local high school P&C. - - It’s all very awkward - - and you think ‘This is chaotic and obviously we‘ve got to move on’.
“I do believe One Nation are a safer set of hands at the moment– they have clarity, they have purpose, they have strength, they have unity and they have a proper political [leaning]. You need conservative side to balance up the more socialist view. If you don’t have that you don’t have that polity that brings about a temperance in legislation.
“I find it all very confusing - how this would work. Remember, the leader of the Nationals, Mr Littleproud, is actually a member of the Queensland division of the Liberal Party.
“-it’s all insane, it’s untenable – it just can’t work.”
[Extracts from Joyce interview with Sally Sara, ABC Radio National, 22 January 2026.]
So as the Coalition rots from inside, Australia’s contribution to political populism has a free ride.