Here we go again – the Future of the National Party
In my 36 years working at the ABC, the background brief I was asked to prepare more than any other was about the future of the National Party.
The first time I was asked was after my first federal election in 1990. The National (formerly Country) Party recorded its worst ever federal result that year. It was the worst on three separate measures – share of vote, share of seats won, and share of Coalition seats.
In looking back through my notes, I found this well written introduction.
“From its inception, the Country (now National) Party has faced the challenge of being a rural party in a predominantly urban nation. Predictions of its demise have been consistent both in their regularity and their incorrectness. It has withstood the battles of government and the futility of opposition. It has weathered with difficulty the remorseless decline in the proportion of non-urban Australians, and has managed to survive relatively amicably with its urban coalition partner, while at the same time demurely rejecting propositions to merge.”
“Yet at the end of the twentieth century, as the National Party celebrates its 80th birthday, it also faces its greatest test. Having in the past withstood attacks from without by both its Coalition partner and the Labor Party, its now faces the greater challenge of decay from within. For the first time its position as the party best able to represent the interests of rural and regional voters has been seriously questioned by the voters themselves.” (See end of post for reference)
I wrote the above in the year 2000 for a book chapter on rural politics. Twenty five year later only the references to years needs updating. And maybe a reference to the currently suspended Coalition agreement.
In 2000 the continuing challenge to the Nationals was rural Independents, though the chapter also covered the spectacular early rise of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation before the new entrant’s support faded.
Twenty five years later the challenge of Independents has migrated to cities to haunt the Liberals. But One Nation, the ghost of elections past, has returned with full force and is rocking the foundations of the National Party and the federal Coalition.
Since the Coalition lost office in 2022, the National Party has several times pre-empted its Coalition partner by announcing more conservative positions on contentious policies. The Nationals moved first in opposition to The Voice referendum. The party pushed the Coalition on adopting nuclear power, and since the 2025 defeat, has dragged the Liberals to a position opposing net-zero carbon emissions.
The Nationals and Leader David Littleproud have argued their party has retained its support and seats over the last two elections and it is the Liberals that have haemorrhaged support by going ‘Labor-lite’.
But is moving to be ‘One Nation-lite’ the best answer to successive defeats?
At the 2025 election, the Nationals were returned with 35.9% of the Coalition’s seats. This is the party’s highest proportion since the Second World War and an argument that the Nationals should have a bigger say on Coalition policy.
But the chart below, plotting the Nationals’ percentage of Coalition seats at elections since 1922, shows the Country/National Party always records a higher share of Coalition seats in parliaments where the Coalition is on the opposition benches. When the Coalition is in government, the Nationals’ share of seats is always lower.
The reason the Nationals share has surged at the last two elections is because the Liberal Party’s result has been so bad. The National percentage of Coalition seats has risen only because the number of Liberal seats plummeted while the National Party has avoided losing many seats.
When the Coalition loses government, it is always due to Liberal Party losing seats. And victory for the Coalition is always built on the back of the Liberal Party gaining seats, not the Nationals.
It strikes me that the best way for the Coalition to win government is to work out how the Liberal Party can win metropolitan seats. At the moment the advice on how to do this seems to be coming from the National Party who have never held metropolitan seats. And conservative Liberals, most of whom also do not hold metropolitan seats.
But let me look at other measures of National Party support.Read More »Here we go again – the Future of the National Party