The office of Finance Minister Senator Nick Minchin circulated a copy of speech on Wednesday night that was never delivered. The copy contained the suggestion that the Liberal Party and the National Party should merge. The speech was to a conference of the National Farmers Federation in Western Australia.
When news of the idea reached Prime Minister John Howard, on an official visit to China, he ordered that the offending parts of the speech not be delivered. Deputy Prime Minister and National Party leader John Anderson expressed his displeasure at the fact that Senator Minchin dared even think about putting the suggestion to the conference.
Senator Minchin’s written version of the the speech said, “”I do look forward to the day when we are one great Centre-Right party, uniting liberals, conservatices and believers in free enterprise.” It would mean that the merged party would hold 43 of the 63 rural and regional (non-urban) seats in the Parliament.
There is both good sense and danger in what Senator Minchin says, especially from a National Party perspective. The National Party is steadily losing support. In its heyday of 1975 it had 22 seats in a 127-seat House. Now it has just 13 seats in a 148-seat House. Last election it got just 5.6 per cent of the vote. But it is still a powerful force. Its 5.6 per cent of the vote delivers it 8.7 per cent of the seats and more importantly several ministries whenever the Coalition is in power. From that position it has been able to exercise power and influence well beyond its numbers. It the Nationla Party were to merge, it would lose that influence over policy, particularly with respect to matters important to the Bush – freer trade, more government help for transport and telecommunications to sparsely populated areas of Australia.
It is here that Senator Minchin misses the point. His written speech talked of the philosphic similarity between the Liberals and Nationals as the good reason to merge. But the existence of the National Party has little to do with poitical philosophy. It is to do with geographic conerns. It is about getting results for the Bush irrespective of political philosphy. Mostly there is no coherent philosphy behind National Party policy positions. At once it is an agrarian socialist party revelling in the benefits of state ownership, subsidised public infrastructure and socialised marketing and in the same breath it is a free marketeer and free trader so it can get the best deal on imported or locally produced manufacturing produce.
A merged party would not be a “”greatAustralian Centre-Right party”. It would be a mix of believers in individual liberty (in the market and or the bedroom), believers in giving business (including agriculture) the best and believers in moral strictness. Each would jockey for ascendancy. A merged party would often have damaging divisions whreas a Coaltion can have an understanding of differences.
From a Liberal perspective, a merged party would get a great lift in party numbers. The National Party has a huge membership. Whether the grassroots would stay members of a combined party for long, though, would be a matter of conjecture. The Liberals have been fortunate that in government, at least, the Nationals have always been in Coalition with the Liberals – illustrating the point that the spoils of office are far more important than political purity for the Nationals.
Given the Nationals’ loyalty and the capacity for understood differences in the Coalition arrangements, there is little to gain from the Liberals’ perspective. From a National Party perspective, while the leadership gets ministries it will always want a separate entity, but if the voters see it differently, they will force not so much a merger, but a swallowing up of the Natonal Party. In 1980, the Coalition had 58 per cent of the seats, about the same as now. In 1980 the Nationals had a quarter of the Coalition’s seats, now it has just 16 per cent of them.
Mr Howard and Mr Anderson might like to suppress talk of a merger, but the voters – however gradually — are doing it for them.
Nats can rely on grssroots… rather than spoils to do leg-work spoils come in policy goodies.
Senate collapse is worse… 3 NP Senators… down from 8 in 1975.