Prediction: The Demise of The Nationals

You've got to hand it to Little Johnny Howard. One of his lasting effigies must surely be forever moving Australian politics into the (strictly) 2 party system. Under his tenure, he has surely seen off the likes of:

• The Democrats (thanks to the GST debacle)
• One Nation (by stealing their policies)
• Family First (thanks to VSU & anti-abortion support)

And now, of course, we have his latest victim - The Nationals.

Despite the Nationals facing a perfect opportunity to shore up support in the Bush, they are quickly imploding on themselves as they battle to split the party into two. There's the "wish we were more like the Liberals" Nationals and the "wish we were more like Barnaby" Nationals. It's almost very similar to what happened to the Democrats with a few nutters thinking that they could actually do more than hold the balance of power (I've always thought that Meg et al had been brainwashed by Liberal hacks telling them - come into the mainstream and make a real difference!!!).

Sorry folks, the minute you jumped into bed with the Coalition and backed the GST - this after it was not raised in the general election and had previously been ruled out by Howard ("we will never introduce a GST"). What happened to "keeping the bastards honest"? What, by letting pull the biggest rug over our eyes in history?

And now we're seeing the same with the Nats - Barnaby is trying to maintain the Nationals Agrarian Socialist policies going (AWB single desk, Bush Infrastructure, etc) while the other half is rushing to sign up with the Liberals. Personally I like the notion of an Agraian Socialist policy - I think it's been an important part of our egalatarianism in that no matter where you lived in the country, you could access core essential services - and at the same price as folks in the city. Yet the Libs (and Labour for that matter) have been pulling that notion to pieces to the point where soon, living in rural and regional Australia will be prohibitively expensive (perhaps another prediction for another time).

So good luck to the Nationals as they try to stem the demise of smaller parties in Australia. Their demise will be our loss and it will further entrench the two party system in the country and thus further focus power within the hands of the minority - and as we all now know - you've got a grease a palm to succeed in business and, thanks to Johnny, there'll be fewer palms to grease...