The Nationals are onto a good scam. They eternally invoke the welfare of regional Australia, which they claim comes second to that of metropolitan Australia, for their policy obstructionism and support for corruption, rorting and pork-barrelling. But they never deliver actual outcomes for regional communities, which on many indicators have gone backwards despite them being in office for the past eight years, and for 19 of the last quarter-century.
Let’s have a look at a range of indicators on the welfare of regional communities over time and see how well served they’ve been by the Nationals. We can draw on a large dataset compiled by the private Torrens University that has time series data broken down by metropolitan, inner and outer regional and remote areas.
Education Between 2015 and 2019 participation in vocational education rose in major cities but fell in inner and outer regional areas, and in remote areas, among both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Participation in higher education rose in cities between 2011 and 2019, but fell in inner and outer regional areas, though it rose slightly in remote areas.
Families and community Although the proportion of single-parent families with children under 15 rose marginally in cities, it rose significantly in inner and outer regional and remote areas. Volunteering rose in cities but fell in regional and remote areas. The proportion of low birthweight babies fell in cities but rose in regional areas — though it fell significantly in very remote areas.
Employment The level of long-term unemployment nearly doubled between 2006 and 2017 in inner and outer regional communities. The level of low-income, welfare-dependent families with kids fell in the cities but rose in regional and remote areas. Between 2006 and 2016, the employment participation rate in regional areas fell while in metropolitan Australia it rose — meaning one of the few important achievements of the Coalition government failed to reach regional communities. The main driver of rising participation, female workforce participation, rose in regional areas during that time — but only marginally, while it increased significantly in cities.
Health The level of people with behavioural or mental health problems increased much more in inner regional areas than in cities between 2014 and 2018. In those years the proportion of people with psychological distress or who were overweight rose in the regions and declined in cities. The level of premature death between the late 1990s and the middle of the 2010s fell by more than 20% in cities but by less than 15% in regions; deaths from diabetes rose in inner regional areas, and deaths from suicide, which fell noticeably in urban areas, rose in regional communities. Avoidable deaths from cancer and diabetes or external causes rose in regions and fell in cities.
For the party that claims to represent the regions and which has been in power for the great bulk of the years since the mid-1990s, this is surely a litany of failure, despite the billions of dollars its ministers have rorted and misdirected across those years. The falls in outcomes just in the years since 2014 are particularly worrying.
Even when regional Australia has done well, it has been in spite of the Nationals, not because of them. As Crikey has repeatedly shown, agriculture is Australia’s great productivity, production and export success story of the past 20 years. Even during severe drought, Australian farmers earn more in real terms than they did during the ’90s. But the Nationals have consistently opposed the reforms that enabled this success.
They’ve doggedly opposed water trading, which has allowed a crucial resource to be directed to where it can create the most value. They have persistently supported drought relief for inefficient farmers, drawing criticism not just from the likes of the Productivity Commission but from farming groups for propping up producers who shouldn’t be kept going.
Barnaby Joyce’s agriculture white paper in 2015 — which was predicated on maintaining a low-productivity family farming industry — supported another long-running Nationals policy: concessional loans for farmers, which merely encourage farmers to take on unsustainable levels of debt and make uncommercial decisions.
And in any event, the Nationals have long since abandoned farmers as their core constituency, preferring instead to take huge donations from fossil-fuel companies and support extractive industries over agriculture.
Regional communities are only the pretext for the Nationals to run their scam. If they ever actually delivered for those communities, they’d lose their primary tool for leveraging taxpayer dollars out of their Liberal colleagues. They have a vested interest in, even an addiction to, keeping their communities poorer, worse educated and in poorer health.
Regional communities can only prosper in spite of the Nationals, not because of them.
Well said! I’ve wondered for a long time how the Nationals have the nerve to go on and on about how their constituents have the worst outcomes of any in Australia as they propose yet more rorts, theft and extortion for their rich mates. The Nationals are not the cure, they are the disease.
Once upon a time the mad cow cocky Country Party ruled the regional rural voting roosts of local shire/state/fed.. We’ve progressed on to the townie Coles & Woolies hunter n gatherers ( who have as much connection to land & country, -apart from real estate prices- as buying a variety Twisties on the supermarket shelves ) now being the majority of National Party voters…There’s a lot of poor fella my country funny b*ggers out here n there in the post modern bush .;-).
There are 21 Nats in Parliament, total depending on how one regards the LNP.
There are 227, warmish, bodies infesting both Chambers.
So fewer than 10% of trough feeders are dominating this country’s legislative agenda on climate change purely for the benefit of their owners.
Have I missed some point about “no representation without taxation”?
“The Nationals are not the cure, they are the disease.’
Not so; the disease is our current neo-Liberal/neo-Keynesian economic orthodoxy, under which we all – and democracy itself – suffer.
Sovereign currency-issuing governments (which have a treasury and central bank) should be able to issue the nation’s currency, and fund the government’s spending, without being forced to tax or borrow from the reluctant private sector; no-one likes paying tax. therefore government can never properly fund health, age and disability care etc, much less fund and build the required green infrastructure.
And the private sector won’t invest sufficient funds quickly enough, without guarantees from government including carbon pricing and compensation for loss of fossil jobs, so we have a catch-22 situation.
The solution is funding by the public sector, overseen globally by a World Bank set up for the purpose, using the currency-issuing capacity of such a bank. The resulting drop in energy prices as the globe transitions to sun and wind power, will counterbalance any inflationary forces.
Otherwise these silly political games, to decide who will pay, will continue. Glasgow will be excruciating to watch, as nations point fingers at one another – a repeat on the global scene of the domestic gridlock and finger pointing in Australia.
You’d think by now, people would realise two things about the relationship between science / technology and agriculture:
Why the Liberal party (or the opposition) aren’t pointing this out loudly and repeatedly is a mystery. Even if one ignores the extinction those on the left are trying to prevent, there are plenty of pragmatic reasons that put our country and its food / economic future in a better shape.
This is one of the more short-sighted policy stances I can see, and I’m baffled as to why people aren’t making a bigger deal of it – especially given the rhetoric about trying to turn agriculture into a $100,000,000,000 industry by 2030. How can that be done by treating agriculture as a rustic homespun little guy vs the big bad government way? It’s not like the Nationals are in danger of losing their seats if they embrace sensible farming policies…
There are numbers of small operators/families in farming. As the family grows the share gets smaller. The survivors are the ones that get bigger.
The change forces members of the family off the land resulting to opposition to change from the larger number of voters.
Many successful cattle operations are now one family multiple properties with the shipping of cattle between properties for agistment because of feed availability.
The Dairy farm run by relatives had to move west and is now operated by one member as opposed to the family. The rest have moved off the land.
Change is slow.
Kel, the Nationals aren’t interested in farming policy unless it is for the benefit of multinational agribusinesses (read: cotton and nuts), and then only if it doesn’t adversely affect the mining industry. Those donations have to come from somewhere.
That is all well and good, however, the reality is that they give rural Australia what they want. How do I know this, very simply, because of the numbers in Parliament. The present Federal government is in power because pretty well all but inner city seats belong to them.
It is the perennial conundrum of Australia. We want better government services yet we vote L/NP, environment, emissions, health, education, honesty, a fairer society, no corruption – it’s all the same. What we claim to want between elections is not how we vote when an election happens.
My point for ages has been that you cannot blame politicians, whose sole aim is to be in power, for giving people what they want. We had a clear choice at the last election and we have those we voted for in goverment.
I actually feel like vomiting when I read the media w*****g over the green washing by industry, NFF, banks, media, mining sector and Morrison. If Morrison came out and apologized for his lies, and those of his party (for the past 30 years), about emissions I might not be so condemning, but they haven’t, they are not going to pass legislation about 2050, they will not revise 2030, so nothing has changed except the rhetoric.
Morrison has got his clues from Johnson, say whatever you feel like saying and do whatever you feel like doing, and the media will support you and the voters will reward you. International agreements mean nothing to these people, they have undermined them for years. Australians want to feel good about themselves, we don’t give a stuff about others or the planet, Morrison knows that.
If Morrison suffers a landslide against him, as he deserves, at the next election I may change my mind, but I am not holding my breath.
Just been reading Amy Remeikis record of Question Time today and it is nauseating.
Polishing a turd is a euphemism for Morrison masturbating.
I don’t know how people can follow QT and stay sane.
Some valid points here, especially about the strange Boris Johnston phenomenon – so far he gets away with everything, regardless of him being incompetent and a chronic liar. Morrison, knowing that the Murdoch media will always back him may well follow the Boris model. Albo and Labor really need to up the ante- call him out as a nasty lying bastard ( plenty of examples!!) This election is so important that they can’t worry about getting stuck in -the gloves have to come off, and soon!!
Of course they should and a half functional party with a leader who was serious would be out there now, and last week/month/year yelling about it, there being no lack of examples, seemingly freshly minted by the week..
Unfortunately a big ask and a bit tough for a party which perfected the Glass House syndrome, as BK never ceases to emphasise.
Labor has PTSD.
I have one question. The National party and its support of regional workers in the mining sector. While there are many locals employed by the sector, just how many are actually FIFO workers who don’t even live in National party electorates?
And just how many jobs are there that still exist after the infrastructure is all built, because so often there are stories like: “This will employ 1500 people (or more) during construction”(most of which aren’t local people due to specific requirements) but afterwards only employs 100 or less? Even just 2?
Yet the farmers are always there, battling against ever increasing challenges due to climate change. The Nationals haven’t really been supporters of rural and regional Australia for a long time. It does sadden me that I have lived in one of the safest seats in Australia and moved to another one (jobs and lifestyle moves)… and nothing really changes.
There are plenty of mine workers and local communities who depend on mining directly or indirectly. The problem – as with most former “blue collar” workers – is that they have been turned into contractors not employees so don’t think to support Labor. They don’t support the Nats either, so as has been noted previously they turn to Shooters and ON for want of an effective option. Labor has a lot of work to do (no thanks to Fitzgibbon) but have been stymied to a large extent by the government kyboshing any move on climate policy, aided and abetted by the fossil fuel corporations who want to dig up as much as possible until the last minute then up sticks and vamoose. That is what we should be working to prevent for the sake of these communities but the chain is certainly dragging.
Yet the regions keep voting for them… Are strong and popular independents the only solution??
They can’t all be Bob Katter after all 😉 (mind you even though Bob is at time as mad as a cut snake he does actually have some genuine interest in the bush and also I even agree with him on a few of his “policies”.
Nothing changes.
Almost half a century ago if one were to encounter a then Country Party supporter and criticise Bob Katter it was very easy to get into an argument.
Respond “I was talking about young Bob not old Bob.”
Immediate acceptance and agreement that Young Bob was a rabbit and argument avoided and friendship ensued.
They were the good old days.
That certainly appears to be happening. The Fishers & Shooters continue to bite of chunks of their traditional territory,
Yes .Can we clone Helen Haines and Zali Stegall ?
They dont realise they would not be any worse off by voting Labor!
Yes
NO!! Independents are NOT the answer. It beggars belief that people like you cannot see that a ‘group’ of right-wing independents from rural areas…and they will all be ‘right’ leaning…will just replace the Gnats, and be just as disasterous.
I am totally against ANY minority group ruling the country by ‘black-mailing’ the majority party in government…and that is exactly what will happen, as anyone with more than half a brain can see.
You re correct that sham, front candidates are common but fortunately they are transparently so – and in rural electorates their antecedents & leanings would be well known.
Hence when a real independent runs, they are easily recognisable as such.
I don’t think Tony Windsor fell into that category. There is no reason why there can’t be regional independents just as good as the ones elected recently – Steggall, Haines. In fact Haines is also regional. They are more in touch with their constituents – they have to be to become known.