The clock has just ticked over 8:00am in Tweed Heads as Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack steps in front of the camera.

Key points: The tradition of the wombat has been lost, retold and repurposed for decades

The tradition of the wombat has been lost, retold and repurposed for decades The meaning of the "wombat trail" is the subject of much debate and interpretation

The meaning of the "wombat trail" is the subject of much debate and interpretation For Nationals leader Michael McCormack, it represents a "quaint tradition" and is a symbol of the party's endurance

It is Monday, April 15 — four days after the election was officially called — and the Nationals leader is out on the hustings.

"Dare I ask, what are you holding?" a tentative Michael Rowland opens with from his ABC studio in Melbourne.

"Well, I'm holding the wombat," Mr McCormack replies, deadly serious.

Now if that needs more explanation, you have to go back 50 years to understand an Australian political tradition that has been lost, retold and repurposed countless times.

The wombat is a key feature of the Nationals' campaign. ( ABC News: Lucy Barbour )

Birth of the 'wombats'

In 1967, Doug Anthony stood on the back of a truck and addressed a rowdy public meeting in Perth while hecklers slung insults his way.

"It was a true political meeting. I loved it all," the Country Party MP later said.

Doug Anthony hits the trail ahead of the 1967 half Senate election. ( Supplied: Paul Davey )

The colourful political figure knew the importance of publicity and that every interaction boosted his own profile and the party's.

Come the mid-'70s Mr Anthony was the leader of the Nationals and Australia's deputy prime minister under Malcolm Fraser.

As the 1977 election rolled around, it was again time to head out on the road, and Mr Anthony's reputation preceded him.

"You never knew what he was going to come out with," journalist Heather Ewart recalled.

"So it was almost like no media organisation would take the risk of not travelling with them in case you missed something."

And this is where the history first gets a little wobbly.

The story goes: a journalist at the time referred to the National Party's regional campaign as the "wombat trail" and the participants on it as the "wombats".

It's been lost to history exactly who that person was.

As for what they might have meant by "wombat trail", well that's the subject of much debate and interpretation.

We'll get to that soon.

The fun political beat

The National Party of old liked the "wombat trail" reference and happily adopted it for their own use.

It was an in-house term shared only among the politicians and journalists on the trail.

One interpretation is it references the slow-moving HS748 planes the National Party leader used to travel on, and how it resembled the shuffling wombat making its way around the country.

The joke went that the plane travelled so slowly it would take off and hover in the air until the Earth moved around and it was ready to land again.

Doug and Margot Anthony board a HS748 for the 1972 campaign. ( Supplied: Anthony family )

When Ian Sinclair took over as National Party leader in 1984 he picked up the term and ran with it.

He even called in a favour with a cartoonist at the old Sun News-Pictorial newspaper to do a sketch that was embroidered onto ties and handed out to those who went on the trail in the '80s.

Again, no-one can quite remember who that artist was.

"When we presented the first ties we had the little office in Old Parliament House and it filled up with journos who came out of the woodwork," Mr Sinclair's former press secretary Liam Bathgate said.

The cartoon shows the wombat on its back drinking a beer. ( Supplied: Liam Bathgate )

It was the beginning of a formal mascot for the party that has endured until today.

"We tried to find a way by which we could make our trail a little bit more attractive," Mr Sinclair recalled last week.

"We had to distinguish ours as the wombat trail.

"The nature of the travel by National Party leaders is a bit different, and it can be quite fun."

Doug Anthony (far left) and Ian Sinclair (far right) in 1963.

Journalists began bringing plush toy wombats on the trail to honour the term, and getting a gig with the Nats at election time was something of a privilege back then.

"Everybody knew that if you travelled with the wombats you were going to have fun," said Ewart, who went on her first wombat trail in 1980.

"I can remember one time with Doug Anthony, our plane landed on the Hay Plains in the Riverina because there was a bush picnic race meeting on.

"You would have late nights and raucous gatherings and yarn telling and they were very much part of it."

From left: Journalists Rod Allen, Tim Stevens and Paul Chamberlin on the 1993 wombat trail. ( Supplied: Paul Chamberlin )

When Tim Fischer took over as Nationals leader in 1990 the ties had gone, but the idea remained.

"It's a symbol of the craziness facing each Nationals leader in the course of the campaign," Mr Fischer said last week.

Again, the story has been lost in the retelling but it's believed a constituent gifted a football-sized wooden wombat to Mr Fischer sometime around the 1996 election.

The very same wombat Mr McCormack was holding in Tweed Heads just a few weeks ago.

The wombat in the modern age

Like all symbols, the wombat is adaptable, able to take on whatever interpretation suits the custodian of the day.

It has been passed from leader to leader and these days lives on a shelf in Parliament House, to be dusted off come election time.

John Anderson (right) presents the wombat to Mark Vaile in 2005. ( Supplied: Paul Davey )

Warren Truss hands the wombat to Barnaby Joyce in 2016. ( Facebook: Barnaby Joyce )

For Mr McCormack, it represents a "quaint tradition" and a symbol of the endurance of a party that sticks to its country roots even as populations centralise in cities.

"Even though sometimes he's been up-ended and sometimes he's been run in to, the fact is he continues keeping on keeping on," Mr McCormack said.

(Mr McCormack is something of a National Party traditionalist, having also resurrected the "Tumbatrek" — an annual and informal hike with politicians and journalists in the Riverina that was started by Mr Fischer but dropped off in the intervening years.)

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Yet another interpretation of the wombat is a little more crude — isn't that the animal that "eats roots and leaves"?

Wink wink, nudge nudge — geddit?

One story goes that Mr Fischer considered renaming the wombat trail the "pony express" in an effort to move away from that joke.

He admits he did briefly flirt with a name change and did not often take the mascot with him on the road, but ultimately he kept true to tradition.

"You would need to be a brave leader of the Nationals to change the name of the wombat trail," he said.

Mr McCormack is also happy to retire the "eats roots and leaves" phrase, suggesting future historians should refer to it as the "wakes, works and leaves" trail.

It remains to be seen if that sticks.

Michael McCormack is taking the wombat everywhere. ( AAP: Rohan Thomson )

It is unavoidable the nature of the wombat trail would change over the years.

Gone are the days when the Nationals leader would drop into isolated towns and journalists would feed lines back to the newsroom over the landline phone at the local pub.

Now, a leader can patch into national TV from a satellite link, then the clips can be posted to social media to be viewed, shared and commented on anywhere in the world.

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And for better or worse — depending on how cynical you are — the wombat has shifted from an in-house term to become a part of the political branding for a party always working to differentiate itself from its Coalition partner.

Not that Mr McCormack sees it that way.

"I've got to tell you the National Party doesn't need notoriety because we have been turning up for 100 years. We've been delivering for 100 years," he said.

"Yes, you know, the critics and the naysayers have always said, 'Oh the National Party, you know they're reaching the end of the line'.

"No, we're not, absolutely not. And you know wombats are enduring, wombats are solid, so is the National Party."