There are continuing rumblings in Queensland that all is not going sweetly with the newly merged Liberal National Party. It is a matter for the merged party as to how they want to operate, but I have to say I am getting more and more confused about how it is supposed to work.
With Queenslander Barnaby Joyce now elevated to Leader of the (stand alone) National Party in the Senate, he has again talked about the need to differentiate his party from the Liberals. Yet going into next year’s state election in Queensland and crucially also the next federal election (which always has the potential of happening some time next year as well if the government judges that a double dissolution is necessary), the Liberal and National Parties (or should that be Party??) are presenting themselves to the public as a single, seamlessly intertwined entity.
With the latest negotiations on the luxury car tax seeing Steve Fielding potentially getting government agreement on special treatment for farmers and tourist operators, this article reports Joyce as saying the government should at least “quarantine all Australian cars from the tax.”
Joyce recently condemned the government’s tax increase on luxury cars as “left wing, last century socialism”, which is presumably different from the agrarian socialism he has said the Nationals stand for. (I’m not sure whether the National’s see that as 21st century socialism or 19th century socialism)
But given that Joyce is the now National’s Senate Leader, I don’t know if his idea for increasing the tax differential on Australian made cars is an idea supported by the federal Liberal-National Coalition or just the federal National Party, or only the Queensland Liberal National Party, or perhaps just the Queensland Nationals?
No doubt it’s just an attempt by Senator Joyce to pursue his strategy of “more differentiation for the Nationals”. If I were in the Nationals, I would see a lot of merit in this strategy. I just can’t see how you can differentiate and merge at the same time.
The only way I can make any logical sense out of this is if those who describe the merged Liberal National Party as just a National Party takeover of the Liberals are correct – in which case there is no Liberal Party for Senator Joyce to need to distinguish himself from. I’m not sure how the federal Liberal Party MPs from Queensland would feel about that interpretation though.
2 Comments
Like you, Andrew, I find this all very confusing! I can see the sense of the Nationals differentiating themselves at a Federal level, and I get the feeling that their constituents have been rebelling against their meekness in the Coalition for some years. But this seems completely at odds with the LNP adventure. I just don’t know if you can have it both ways.
Anyway, FWIW, I agree that Sen. Joyce is a good leadership choice for presenting the Nats as a more independent voice in the parliament. He is good TV talent as well, which doesn’t hurt I suppose.
What happens with how the merged LNP Party is described will certainly be very interesting as far as the Senate leadership goes. If the LNP is decided to be a branch of the Federal Liberal Party then Joyce certainly could not be leader of The Nationals in the Senate anymore than Senator Brandis should be.
Otherwise they should allow all the previously Liberal senators to vote on The Nationals leadership (at my count Boyce, Brandis, Macdonald, Mason and Trood), these people equalling the numbers of The Nationals themselves!
That is, unless they go for a confusing jumble of rules as far as party room votes go, where previously Liberal senators of the LNP can only enter the party room of the Liberal Party and so on… which would make it questionable as to the value of merging to start with.
A big mess.