Patriach gives OK, but can it happen?
29.05.2006
ON Saturday, Nationals heavyweights Bruce Scott and David Russell drove to the Gold Coast unit where the party's grand old statesman, Robert Sparkes, lives, confined to a wheelchair through debilitating illness.
They told him of the proposal they had brokered -- merging the National and Liberal parties -- and waited for his reaction.
That response, given haltingly by a very sick man, was the imprimatur they sought. The patriarch had given his blessing.
It was Sir Robert, widely acknowledged as a political genius in his day, who engineered the 1974 change by which the Country Party became the Nationals. It took a few years for other states and the federal body to follow, but follow they did.
The reality is that the strength of the Nationals is in Queensland. It is the blue heeler that wags the tail of the other states, not the other way round. That is why the latest merger talks were conducted in Queensland, almost disdainfully of the other states.
There is an expectation that, as happened in 1974, the non-Queensland Nationals will ``fall into line''.
And therein lies the danger.
The National Party of 1974 was an autocracy, a feudal empire ruled by Sparkes and then Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Federally it had a succession of strong and influential leaders, including Doug Anthony and Tim Fischer.
It was the 1987 demise of Sir Joh -- when, after the abortive ``Joh for PM'' campaign, he was overthrown by his own party -- that signalled the end of the party as a political force.
It has been argued with some legitimacy that federally the Nationals are now little more than a rural lobby group, confined to the interests of their constituency with little interest in, or care about, the wider national good.
Sir Joh was so embittered at being overthrown that for many years he refused to have anything to do with his old party.
But the roots of discontent were really sewn in 1983 when the Liberal and National party coalition in the Queensland parliament split. Two Liberals, Don Lane and Brian Austin, defected to the Nationals, allowing Sir Joh to rule in his own right. He then won the subsequent election and was able to govern alone, with the Liberal Party left decimated.
As a result, a deep hatred was born. The Queensland Liberal Party never forgave the Nationals for taking the two turncoats and turning on their former coalition partner.
So there were no Liberal tears shed when Sir Joh was ousted. The Queensland electorate had outgrown the single-issue style of the National Party and its irrelevance became apparent to all.
Disaffected National MPs and party members defected and grass-roots members collected in the late 1990s and came up with the hugely successful flash-in-the-pan One Nation party, headed by the irrepressible Pauline Hanson.
So the Nationals have floundered, a fact accepted and acknowledged by current parliamentary leader Lawrence Springborg, who had the foresight and desire to change things.
Last year he went to Canada to see first-hand how the conservative coalition there worked. He came back enthused about change in Queensland.
Almost 18 months ago, he produced his ``road map'' to success in government -- the key element of which was to amalgamate with the Liberals and become a single conservative force, presenting to the public a voice of unity. But he could not convince the hardliners that it would work -- and the imbedded bitterness in the Liberals made that task impossible.
It is a remarkable feat to have come so far in such a short time that a merger -- in principle as it is at this stage -- can be seriously on the table.
But the real test is to now see if the current power-brokers in the Liberal and National parties have the ability of Sparkes to steer through such momentous change.
If they don't, the damage done will be enormous.
