Modern politics is usually a war of attrition between egos and factions, but when Senator Matt Canavan walks into battle on Monday, the leadership of the Nationals will be about ideas.
Over the last 48 hours, Canavan has put considerable effort into testing his battle-cry. He is feeling out public support. Spooking the softer, climate-controlled side of his party with the nostalgia of regional values…
‘We should never take advice from those who want us to lose,’ said Canavan. Now that is good advice.
Everyone knows the Nationals were hushed up, either willingly or by Liberals making doe-eyes at Teal seats. It was all for nothing.
The Coalition is going the way of the Tories and they have done it without the excuse of a charismatic Farage figure biting at their heels. Australia’s minor parties on the right are hardly a force to be reckoned with and yet voters are bleeding out and pooling in their ranks.
Frustration has spilled out into public comments, and Canavan momentarily earned the scorn of his base by repeatedly expressing his disappointment in Senator Jacinta Price’s decision to sit with the Liberals in the hope of leaning on their leadership. He has redirected that agitation into challenging Littleproud.
Voters are watching conservative personalities in the Coalition stage a takeover bid. About a decade too late, but better than never.
Without the fear of a reprimand, Canavan’s turn of phrase has taken on a refreshingly quarrelsome tone.
‘Labor is conducting an experiment to see if we can power major industry based on weather forecasts,’ he quipped. ‘The Coalition adopted an election strategy that we could save these jobs [in the regions] by not fighting for them.’
He elaborates, ‘We were lectured that we should not speak up because “city” voters would be repelled if we fought for farmers, miners, and factory workers … I heard the same arguments from a Liberal minister. “Matt, we can’t approve Adani because it will cost us seats in Melbourne.”’
Those seats were lost anyway.
It seems extraordinary that the Coalition were unable to mount an argument in favour of environmental protection against a Labor-Green coalition who have been advocating for the bulldozing of rainforests, destruction of farmland, and ruin of Australia’s beaches where, yes, some of those city voters like to holiday. Renewable energy kills koalas and interferes with whale breeding grounds and still the Coalition had nothing but praise for ‘green’ projects.
The current government is buying solar panels and wind turbines from a communist nation that pours concrete over coral atolls so they can be turned into military bases to threaten the sovereign waters of our Asian partners, and still the Coalition never said a word.
Their failure at the election can only be a consequence of their inability to admit complicity in the original green lie.
Here too, Canavan has some advice that might have made a good campaign banner: ‘The primary goal of our electricity system should be to reduce power bills, not reduce emissions.’
Canavan is focusing on the people, or more specifically, their jobs.
‘On Monday, I plan to stand for the leadership of the Nationals to bring back our fighting spirit. Only if we fight will we have a fighting chance … this is about fighting for the jobs and livelihoods of the many people we represent.’
He adds, ‘While our banks grow fat on the teat of carbon credits and green subsidies, our workers pay for it every quarter in their power bill and every week in their shopping trolley … it was the Nationals who first stood against Kevin Rudd’s carbon tax.’
Unlike Peter Dutton, whose beliefs remain a mystery, Canavan has been perfectly clear.
‘We should scrap the futile and unachievable goal of Net Zero emissions by 2050.’
He gives his reasons but his rationale is better. ‘The rule should be that if it is okay to export, it is okay for us to use. We should not tolerate other countries (to which we export coal and gas) having cheaper power prices than us.’
Contrast this to, ‘What David [Littleproud] is fighting for…’ As stated on his website, ‘Cheaper and more consistent power by bringing in a mix of nuclear, gas, carbon capture storage, and renewable energy.’ Remember, cheering on Net Zero was one of Littleproud’s first acts following his rolling of Barnaby Joyce.
‘This is not about the National Party lurching left or lurching right,’ said Littleproud. ‘It’s using common sense and being in the sensible centre. That’s where you win elections, not chasing extremities.’
Hopefully the Coalition has been relieved of this belief, having been shot and stabbed several times while standing in no-man’s land. What’s more, the ‘centre’ of politics is drifting off somewhere near One Nation and I am bored of the media fantasy that the Coalition are ‘far-right’ or ‘too far right’. The Coalition haven’t been ‘of the right’ for the best part of 30 years.
Listen carefully to what Littleproud said when he took the leadership, ‘I couldn’t look my people in the eye and say we can’t be part of a global community.’ Globalism, not localism. ‘We are moving forward on climate. We made that commitment, and the Australian economy is moving forward on that. We don’t need to legislate to do that.’
The economy is moving backwards, weighed down by climate legislation that has disbanded the free market and allowed the transfer of wealth from working families in the Nationals’ seats to the pockets of the inner-city Labor voters. When Littleproud committed to climate, he also committed to helping Labor win elections.
‘I believe the climate is changing. Whether it is man-made or not, I don’t really care.’
Littleproud should care, because if the climate fluctuations are natural, then Australian taxpayers have been robbed of over a hundred billion dollars. Democracy has been subverted by the quasi-religious threat of apocalypse. Carbon taxes, carbon capture, Net Zero – all a nonsense. Money and power have been exchanged on a monstrous fabrication and someday those who perpetuated it will be discovered. Climate reparations may look very different from what activists envision. Australians might want their money back…
In his pitch to the public, Canavan makes other appeals to conservative beliefs, but he ends with an important point.
‘Our plan should be based on how we can save the country, not save the party. I am standing for my party’s leadership so I can tell my kids I did everything I could to fight for a better life for them.’
If leadership battles were won on merit, or swords at dawn, I daresay Canavan would have it.
Unfortunately, merit must fight is way through factional henchmen and there are plenty of those guarding the fort.
Several individuals who are well-placed to know the truth of the party room have said that Canavan is a long way from winning as Littleproud maintains ‘overwhelming support’.
That may be true.
At some point, the consensus within the party will have to acknowledge the consensus of the public and realise that these election losses are a manifestation of diverging expectations.
Almost every policy cherished by the wets is resented by the people they represent. These people often cast their votes in ‘safe’ seats entirely to avoid something worse, like Labor. A victory at the polls is not necessarily an endorsement in a least-worst campaign.
What is lacking from Australia’s political landscape is enthusiasm. You can feel in the Trump crowds. You can hear it in the voices of those who vote for Reform. Those are movements. Australia is enduring its political class.
Matt Canavan could lead a movement, if the Nationals let him try.
I doubt they have the courage.
If the party seriously believes that Trumpism lost them the election then there is no hope for their survival. They will water themselves down, break apart, decompose, and fertilise the soil until something new grows.
Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.
