Joe Spagnolo: Nationals must heed debacle in WA

As Australians tune into the new reality hit series The Real Pollies of Canberra, it’s been interesting to see David Littleproud’s attempts to downgrade the National Party’s relationship with Sussan Ley’s Liberals from a coalition to an alliance. An alliance? Isn’t that what the WA Nationals and WA Liberals have in the wild west — a political arrangement so dumb, so bad, that it has seen the conservatives lose three consecutive State elections by record numbers and has likely consigned the Opposition to eight more years in purgatory? Among Littleproud’s list of demands to Ley to maintain a coalition in Canberra was for a selection of his Nationals to sit in shadow cabinet, enjoy the extra bucks and other political perks, but not be bound by cabinet solidarity. In other words, an open relationship — so to speak. It’s a relationship where Liberals and Nationals can go head-to-head on different policies and fight against each other at elections. It’s exactly the relationship the Liberals and Nationals have in WA. In hindsight, we should have seen the post-Federal election war between the Nationals and Liberals coming. A practice run of The Real Pollies of Canberra was played out right here in our own backyard during the election campaign. Remember the fight in Bullwinkel between the Nationals and Liberals? As readers may remember, the new seat was won by Labor’s Trish Cook. And guess who Liberals largely blame for the loss? Their country cousins. Three weeks after the May poll, Liberals are still seething over the antics of the Nationals in Bullwinkel. Antics? Well, for starters, Littleproud publicly came out and bad-mouthed Peter Dutton’s Bullwinkel candidate, Matt Moran. “We think we have a superior candidate (Mia Davies) who probably of all the field has the capacity to sit at the cabinet table sooner, rather than later,” Littleproud told The Sunday Times during the campaign. “I grant you that the Liberal candidate (Matt Moran) has worked for Malcolm Turnbull, but being a staffer is different to actually being in the cut and thrust of it.” And Liberals definitely didn’t think it was funny when Davies came out and publicly supported Labor’s resources production tax credits, saying “good policy deserves support”. But what really got Liberals riled up was Davies taking to social media just a few weeks before the May 3 election telling voters they should put a 1 next to her name on the ballot paper, but allocate preferences according to their own wishes. Liberals are incensed Davies didn’t tell voters on social media to preference her conservative, Coalition partner on the ballot paper. Liberal scrutineers claim somewhere between 25-30 per cent of National preferences went to Labor’s Trish Cook. It was fun to watch: If you were a Labor supporter. Interestingly, Davies’ campaign manager in Bullwinkel was none other than Brendon Grylls, the former WA Nationals leader who was a fierce advocate of a National-Liberal Alliance in WA — rather than a coalition. Grylls, in 2008, put to Colin Barnett a list of demands in order to form government, which included a $1 billion a year spend in the bush and an alliance agreement that meant Nationals could have their own set of policies and ideas outside of what was decided in Cabinet. Sound familiar? Yep: I reckon Littleproud and Grylls might have had a few chats during the ill-fated Bullwinkel campaign. If you are talking about the common good — what’s the best road back to government for the Nationals and Liberals — it is to be on exactly the same page, be a united team, and stop fighting over the same piece of bread in elections. Their relationship has to be a coalition. Littleproud need only to look across the Nullarbor to see just how not to do it.