WHAT NATIONALS?

When we looked at the Greens for the up-coming election we spoke about balances of power and the final outcomes.

In the dark past the National Party was a powerful force representing the folk who lived on and off the land. They secured services for the country which would have been ignored or irrelevant to city dwellers, they established mechanisms for farmers to grow and sell their goods. Their close relatiionship with the Liberals meant that a couple of Nationals always had a seat in Cabinet and the position of Deputy Prime Minister. These days they have virtually no influence anywhere in government and still clinbng to the out-dated notion that we even care.

With the ascent of the Liberals and the Nationals becoming a spent force through their own neglect of their country electorates the Liberals no longer needed the Nationals and I believe probasbly have a general distain of them.

The Nationals on the other hand, kniowing that the only way they could have a say, and be a small part of government, was to stay hanging on to the coat-tails of the Liberals otherwise they would be no more significant than the DLP, UAP, One Nation or even the Democrats. If it was not for the fact that neither could ever take power in their own right that they have remained a 'coalition' as they have nowhere else to go.

They have allied themselves so closely to the Liberals that they have the same polcicies, the same ideologies and follow the same Leader regardless of which party they belong to. To keep up all the appearances of being a sepeerate entity they run candidates against each other with a mutual agreement to give their preferences to the candidatre with the most votes. What you get is two candiddates to vote for of which one is assured of a win.

If the Nationals took a leaf from the Greens tree they would realise that they could better represent their country electorate by giving up coalition and giving stick to either Labor or Liberal when it suited. Their have been some effective renegades making the government jump to their tune. Pauline Hanson springs to mind. Senator Harradine who represnted Tasmania for 20 odd years weilded so much power that Tasmania today still gets a far greater portion of the nations treasures than they deserve. Even Bob Brown was able to squeeze all sorts of promises and compromises from whatever party ruled the mainland and for a long time he didn't even have a bloody party behind him. The influence of one man, with enough guts and vision, can do wonders for their eletorate, that is what politics is supposed to be about, not just a line of synchophants queing up in front of the prime minister asking to be the next to be screwed.

It is sometimes the lone renegade that instructs the leader of the government to bend over.