When veteran Queensland National party senator Ron Boswell rose to give his valedictory speech, he evoked Liberal party founder Robert Menzies to put the steel in the spine of his colleagues.



“[Menzies] said Australian Liberals are not the exponents of an open go, for if we are all to have an open go, each for himself, and the devil take the hindmost, anarchy will result and both security and progress disappear.”



“Just keep remembering it,” Boswell said. “These are prophetic words. The Liberal party founder was saying that deregulation is not the answer to all problems and the free market will not always produce the best outcomes.”



As sections of the National party threaten to cross the floor on Tony Abbott’s paid parental leave (PPL) scheme, the fundamental differences between the Coalition partners are again becoming clear.

It stands to reason. The National party has a very different raison d’etre to the Liberal party. The organisation, which began as the agrarian Country party, still has its basis in the philosophy of country-mindedness; that rural people are essential to the nation’s prosperity and identity. The Country party became known for some of the most interventionist policies in Australian politics.

The modern day National party is harder to read than the one led by the likes of former leader John “Black Jack” McEwen, a name proudly mentioned by Boswell last week. Where McEwen had no problems holding the Liberal party to ransom – at one stage torpedoing Billy McMahon, their choice of prime minister – Nationals leader Warren Truss is the ultimate coalitionist. His errant senators protesting PPL are a rare departure from coalition discipline.

'The fundamental differences between the Coalition partners are again becoming clear.' Photograph: Paul A. Souders/CORBIS Photograph: CORBIS

For the truth is, on economic policy there is very little difference between the Liberals and the Nationals. Boswell underlined it, when he pointed to the economic rationalists on his own side, planning for pinhead-sized government, and reminded them it wasn't even in keeping with their own Liberal tradition, let alone the National party's.

In spite of Boswell’s words, his message has been largely lost on the Liberals' constituency. He's been drowned out by the recent budget measures that cut support to National party electorates, which rely more than most on government payments and programs.

The Liberal party, through its treasurer Joe Hockey, has clearly set out its economic agenda of small government. The Nationals’ agenda is less clear. The party excels at articulating what they don’t want, but rarely outlines what they do want, apart from policies for sectional interests like agriculture and road development. What then, for the constituents in small towns, who may be marginalised, unemployed, on pensions – those who are not involved in the agricultural supply chain?

Deputy leader Barnaby Joyce acknowledged his party held some of the poorest people in Australia but his prescription is economic development.



“They don’t live on farms, they are some of the poorest people in Australia, they are indigenous and poor – for want of a better word – white people, who are the truly forgotten Australians, with no special program or department,” Joyce told The Guardian Australia.



“If I can be belligerent and push economic progress, that is the part that lives on, it is economic growth."

'What then, for the constituents in small towns, who may be marginalised, unemployed, on pensions?' Photograph: Alamy Photograph: Alamy

He quotes Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs after the great depression, particularly the Tennessee Valley authority, which was a publicly-owned power provider.

“The Tennessee Valley augmentation scheme, which I have visited, was a scheme that generated hydroelectricity and provided cheap power, it attracted industry, nuclear power, coal mines and provided jobs which increased standards of living, which are vastly better than social security payments.”

The National party has remained doggedly anti-environmentalist. But some common ground exists between farmers, in their self-assessment as stewards of the land, and rural environmentalists – some aligned with the Greens – who can drive support and political will towards the bush.

Joyce attacked largely city-based “environmentalists” who lobby for protection of the land over industry, and then request social security packages for workers who lose their jobs. He quotes his chairmanship of the prime minister’s dams committee and the increased road funding from hypothecation of the fuel excise as concrete examples which would lift rural Australia.

“[Enivonmentalists] want to discuss social security, which would deliver one tenth of what these people were getting when they were working and all they do is create a multi-generational destitution trap,” he said.

Where do the Nationals go from here? Their closest international variant, the Nordic farmer parties, reinvented themselves as more progressive, centrist parties – anti-socialist, economically interventionist but socially conservative, with strong environmental policies.

Former independent and National party member Tony Windsor is one who believed rural representatives should remain in the centre and out of coalition. Doing so would ensure a more regular chance at holding the balance of power, increasing the Nationals' leverage and ability to deliver results for the country.

'What we need is a country GetUp! that drives change.' On the campaign trail with independent MP for Indi, Cathy McGowan Photograph: Oliver Milman for The Guardian Photograph: Oliver Milman/Guardian

In any case, the party is under siege from all sides. Clive Palmer, a former lifetime National party member, leads a party that is already sitting on nearly twice the vote of the National Party (5-5.5%, versus 3%). The Greens are pushing into National territory in rural areas on the issue of mining versus farming. Meanwhile, unnamed Liberal party sources actively destabilised the coalition relationship after the budget by leaking stories about gaming the Nationals on diesel fuel negotiations.

Meanwhile, Indi independent Cathy McGowan has proved members in safe electorates ignore their seats at their own peri. She, like Windsor, showed there is a receptive audience for more progressive policy positions. For example, she accepts the science on climate change and believes a market mechanism, such as Labor's emissions trading scheme plan, is the best way to lower emissions. McGowan also supports same sex marriage.

Charles Sturt University academic Troy Whitford has long been studying and involved with the party, though he is currently not a member. He says there has been a long history of mavericks like Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson appealing to the bush, but the party has endured in spite of regular reports of its demise.



He believes Palmer relies on the National party's coalition discipline. If they don't speak out against Liberal policies, it provides Palmer a better platform to garner disaffected votes from people who can’t see the difference.

“There is a case that people need to see differences of opinion a bit more openly and there is nothing wrong with diversity. After all, that is what healthy debate is all about,” Whitford said.



But he cannot see a day when the National parliamentarians split from the Liberals in order to differentiate, though there have been instances, such as the West Australian Nationals, who split and achieved the $6.5bn Royalties for Regions program.



“They are so hung up on coalition, there isn’t the political will amongst the parliamentarians,” he said. “Within the general party there is."

"At the end of the day they have mortgages to pay, ambitions to serve, they are are not going to throw themselves on their sword, that is one of the depressing realities.”

Whitford believes decent broad-based rural advocacy is lacking in country Australia, the type of advocacy that speaks for many interests in rural areas, towns and regional cities, not just agriculture.



“What we need is a country GetUp! that drives change,” Whitford said.



There is no doubt that a vacuum in political advocacy for rural and regional Australia exists. Palmer, Labor and the Greens have all identified it, as has McGowan.

There is little sign that the National party will change their modus operandi, though that is not to say there are not pockets of thinking outside the box. The party's recent NSW conference passed a motion put by a young member and teacher, to support the Better Schools Gonski funding for the full six years, with the blessing of NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli. The conference also heard a motion to ensure there was no cut to the Renewable Energy Target and one to increase the Newstart allowance "as it is manifestly inadequate".



The political environment has changed a lot since Menzies first spoke against an "open go". Labor deregulated the economy, while the Liberal Party put the neo in neoliberalism. It has had both benefits and pitfalls for the National party's constituency.

Big and medium farming has thrived but those "restructured" out of a job in the regions have joined the ranks of Joyce's rural poor. If the Nationals are to survive and thrive, the party would do well to look further outside its sectional interests and remember Boswell's warning. A little bit of intervention, for the sake of its constituency, is not a dirty word.

