Why do the regions still keep voting for the Nationals?

[Tyberious Funk]

One of the things I've kept hearing during the election is that the rise of teal independents is a reflection of the population's growing concerns around climate change and the consistent inaction from the Coalition government. That's all very well, 'cept...

One of the main blocks in developing policies to address climate change has been the Nationals.

The Nationals represent regional areas -- they are the ones that receive the brunt of impact of climate change, with increasing bushfires, floods, etc.

The Coalition screwed up the response to the floods and fires.

End result?

People in regional areas are still voting for the Nationals.

Barnaby Joyce has almost zero incentive to shift his position on climate change, his party suffered no damage at the election. Climate200 went after the easy targets. One of the talking points a lot of Teals used was how their opponents regularly sided with Barnaby... so the obvious question, why aren't they doing more to challenge him? I'm assuming because they think his position is too deeply entrenched.

 

[dumb]

the issues that potentially point to climate change happen anyway - there's no reason to change their vote for that. people on the land or agriculture have been dealing with floods, fires and weather events long before climate change became the talking point it is today. for them essentially not much has changed.

personally, i can't shake feelings that nationals seem like the sort of party that wouldn't regain any of their seats if they lost it. while i think this might be incorrect for the election (did they gain any?), they seem like a throwback and there's a chance the bigger brother in the coalition would take the seat when they both run in the absence of a coalition candidate.

 

[FIGJAM]

Because even if they bear the brunt of climate change by way of drought, flood and fire, they also assume that they'll bear the brunt of meaningful climate change action.

Each region would have different cogent arguments as to why this might be the case, some valid, some bullshit and some missing out on a "crisitunity", but that's the way I read it.

 

[Maggie5]

One of the things I've kept hearing during the election is that the rise of teal independents is a reflection of the population's growing concerns around climate change and the consistent inaction from the Coalition government. That's all very well, 'cept...

One of the main blocks in developing policies to address climate change has been the Nationals.

The Nationals represent regional areas -- they are the ones that receive the brunt of impact of climate change, with increasing bushfires, floods, etc.

The Coalition screwed up the response to the floods and fires.

End result?

People in regional areas are still voting for the Nationals.

Barnaby Joyce has almost zero incentive to shift his position on climate change, his party suffered no damage at the election. Climate200 went after the easy targets. One of the talking points a lot of Teals used was how their opponents regularly sided with Barnaby... so the obvious question, why aren't they doing more to challenge him? I'm assuming because they think his position is too deeply entrenched.

I would have thought they would continue to support their local member as they got what they wanted from a compliant PM and possibly didn't have the foresight that there may have been a change of government.

Floods, fire, drought government came in and helped with low rate loans (I never did get that as business that go under due to economic circumstances don't get that sort help).

Thought with Barnaby as deputy PM could control government promises due to Climate Change. Surprise!

Will be an interesting 3 years for them.

 

[Power Raid]

One of the things I've kept hearing during the election is that the rise of teal independents is a reflection of the population's growing concerns around climate change and the consistent inaction from the Coalition government. That's all very well, 'cept...

One of the main blocks in developing policies to address climate change has been the Nationals.

The Nationals represent regional areas -- they are the ones that receive the brunt of impact of climate change, with increasing bushfires, floods, etc.

The Coalition screwed up the response to the floods and fires.

End result?

People in regional areas are still voting for the Nationals.

Barnaby Joyce has almost zero incentive to shift his position on climate change, his party suffered no damage at the election. Climate200 went after the easy targets. One of the talking points a lot of Teals used was how their opponents regularly sided with Barnaby... so the obvious question, why aren't they doing more to challenge him? I'm assuming because they think his position is too deeply entrenched.

I think this needs a step back to understand what is actually happening vs the media hype. We can look at three major areas, and then consider the solutions / policies proposed by the three parties:

Climate change -
Farmers are impacted by climate change as weather patterns impact crops.

Coalition - a carbon banking scheme that will generate more wealth to farmers than farming, resulting in larger revenues and asset bases and a better environment. Given farmers choose to live on the land, they value a better environment.

Lab/ greens - a carbon tax which does not improve the immediate environment the farmers live on



Energy Costs
Further farmers are impacted by energy costs due to being off grid in some cases and the vast number of kilometres travelled in work machinery and transport. Thus diesel price is important.

Coalition - let technology advance and adopt technology in Australia as it becomes commercially viable

Lab/ greens - a carbon tax which impacts farmers more than inner city latte sippers. As inner city latte sippers don't have to build their own capital intensive infrastructure and use less energy.



Tax
Farmers are also impacted by taxation policies, with trusts, capital gains and negative gearing being just some of the focus.

Coalition - too slow a reform to harmonise with global trends of increased GST, wealth taxes and lower income taxes but maintain trusts, capital gains and negative gearing

Lab/ greens - anti increasing GST, higher income taxes, too slow on wealth taxes but anti trust, anti capital gains and anti-negative gearing. Pro establishment of a class system



Thus when you look at the policies it is clear regions who have high energy needs won't support an unfair burden of a carbon tax and will strongly support a climate change policy that delivers them more than farming itself whilst improving the land.

 

[Bont2Bruce]

I would have thought they would continue to support their local member as they got what they wanted from a compliant PM and possibly didn't have the foresight that there may have been a change of government.

Floods, fire, drought government came in and helped with low rate loans (I never did get that as business that go under due to economic circumstances don't get that sort help).

Thought with Barnaby as deputy PM could control government promises due to Climate Change. Surprise!

Will be an interesting 3 years for them.

I've never understood why we bail out the farmers seemingly every time they have a natural disaster either. They understood the risks of farming as a business and are quite happy to keep the profits when the good years happen, yet we (The taxpayers) are supposed to prop them up every time there is a flood/drought makes no sense to me. And we are also supposed to swallow that doing all of these type of handouts to farmers whose personal wealth may or may not already be significant is "good economic management" but unemployment benefits is the work of the devil.

 

[Maggie5]

I've never understood why we bail out the farmers seemingly every time they have a natural disaster either. They understood the risks of farming as a business and are quite happy to keep the profits when the good years happen, yet we (The taxpayers) are supposed to prop them up every time there is a flood/drought makes no sense to me. And we are also supposed to swallow that doing all of these type of handouts to farmers whose personal wealth may or may not already be significant is "good economic management" but unemployment benefits is the work of the devil.

I was just thinking that when posters were discussing wages and the increase of a cup of coffee due to a possible minuscule wage increase.

I still don't understand it.

We also help with marketing their products overseas (meat/wheat/wool).

 

[Bont2Bruce]

I was just thinking that when posters were discussing wages and the increase of a cup of coffee due to a possible minuscule wage increase.

I still don't understand it.

We also help with marketing their products overseas (meat/wheat/wool).

For me the price of coffee example is no different to the fuel excise tax change recently, where service stations insisted on keeping the price at the pump at high levels for many days if not weeks because of the value of fuel already in the underground tanks. Which is ridiculous because if/when fuel excise is ever raised, that is not how they would have acted at all - prices would have gone up within the hour if not sooner.

For the coffee situation, it's just an excuse by corporate level people to squeeze maximum profits and has nothing to do with actual bottom line costs.

 

[QuietB]

I've never understood why we bail out the farmers seemingly every time they have a natural disaster either. They understood the risks of farming as a business and are quite happy to keep the profits when the good years happen, yet we (The taxpayers) are supposed to prop them up every time there is a flood/drought makes no sense to me. And we are also supposed to swallow that doing all of these type of handouts to farmers whose personal wealth may or may not already be significant is "good economic management" but unemployment benefits is the work of the devil.

The myth of the free settler (farmer) runs as deep as the myth of the ANZAC's in Australia. They are both untouchable.

 

[HPKS]

I've never understood why we bail out the farmers seemingly every time they have a natural disaster either. They understood the risks of farming as a business and are quite happy to keep the profits when the good years happen, yet we (The taxpayers) are supposed to prop them up every time there is a flood/drought makes no sense to me. And we are also supposed to swallow that doing all of these type of handouts to farmers whose personal wealth may or may not already be significant is "good economic management" but unemployment benefits is the work of the devil.

I’ve lived in a farming area once. As one fella yelled out to a farmer in the pub one night “glorified fcken dole bludgers”. To my surprise, as I’d only lived there a short while, a lot agreed. I soon learnt this to be so true.

 

[DaRick]

I'd say because of a lack of perceived viable alternatives - the ALP have become too city-based, whereas The Greens (rightly or wrongly) are seen as latte-sipping inner-city belligerents. Plus the regions are full of older people who've been voting for the Nats since time immemorial, and old habits die hard.

Independents and to a lesser extent ON have made a dint, and if SFF are resurrected, they'll cut into The Nats margin significantly because many country folk think The Nats are all about Big Mining. ON are on their last legs though (thank god), so I expect the SFF + independents would take up their protest vote and The Nats' hold would weaken further, especially as the older voters die off over the coming decade.

 

[Caesar]

People in regional areas are still voting for the Nationals.

People in regional areas are voting against the ALP/Greens more than they are voting for the Nationals.

You have to live in the regions to understand how much country people loathe and fear the Labor Party. And not necessarily without reason - to take one example, the eventual dismantling of the wool floor price scheme may have been inevitable but it was catastrophically managed by the Hawke government. The way it collapsed utterly destroyed rural economies, communities and families - and plenty of rural people have not forgotten it. They know that Labor don't give a s**t about them, and they're still terrified of being collateral damage in the pursuit of a Labor government's goals - on climate change or anything else.

That doesn't mean rural people are completely wedded to the Nationals. I think people like Cathy McGowan, Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter show that rural people are quite happy to vote for non-Nationals MPs who they're convinced that they represent their interests. In fact, it is only in the latest election where metro areas have shown a similar willingness to elect independents.

Knocking off the Nationals just a matter of finding those people, and reassuring the electorate that if they trust them, they won't stab them in the back. It's something that the Shooters, Farmers and Fishers have done very successfully in recent NSW elections.

 

[Northalives]

This is not a nice thing to say but in the regions where the Nationals are entrenched, the populations there are completely indoctrinated by the National representative's political machine.

Take the New England area of which I have a bit of knowledge about. The vast majority in that region think that Barnaby Joyce is the messiah. The control of information into that area is more akin to the days of Pravda in the old Soviet Union than modern day Australia and with the advent of the internet and social media, has just about turned Joyce and that corrupt regimen into what you see in North Korea. The conspiracy theories that we think is a bit of a joke around here, are treated as gospel over that way and the coup de grâce was the supplanting of local television services by Sky Channel.

We shouldn't be fooled into thinking that those regional areas are made up of just farmers, indeed, it's the farmers that are more sophisticated and knowledgeable about climate change and the environment than the "supplementary" people in those areas shall call them. It's those small land holders or suppliers of services and comestibles that are the deeps south of America equivalents in those areas.

 

[Caesar]

Take the New England area of which I have a bit of knowledge about. The vast majority in that region think that Barnaby Joyce is the messiah.

Utter tosh

 

[kranky al]

The community newspapers in the regions are far more partisan than newscorpse

 

[Northalives]

Utter tosh

Really? And you are up from that way are you matey?

 

[Caesar]

Really? And you are up from that way are you matey?

I do a lot of work in New England, spend a lot of time there talking to the locals

Joyce is highly disliked

 

[Northalives]

I do a lot of work in New England, spend a lot of time there talking to the locals

Joyce is highly disliked

That's the point I was making. There are a lot of people up that way that despise the **** but it's those who provide services and some smaller land holders that are as indoctrinated as any in the nation.

The New England vote has been declared and there was a swing against Joyce of 1.23% TPP and a swing of 2.34% on First Preferences against him. That still gave him 52.48% of all First Preference votes and a whopping 67.63% of the TPP.

Adam Blakester didn't stand this time and he got 14.18% of the vote last time but Joyce got a swing of 2.53% towards him regardless only to lose most of that vote this time.

These figure don't lie. Joyce and the National Party have New England completely sown up.

 

[Gough]

Labor should imagine they were Barnaby Joyce when trying to flush the turd and do what he would do to remove a troublesome foe, no federal funding for New England while he's still their MP. It could be easily done and it's not like the coalition are going to be needed for anything important for at least the next three years.

 

[Caesar]

That's the point I was making.

…okay

 

[Tyberious Funk]

Labor should imagine they were Barnaby Joyce when trying to flush the turd and do what he would do to remove a troublesome foe, no federal funding for New England while he's still their MP. It could be easily done and it's not like the coalition are going to be needed for anything important for at least the next three years.

Why would they want to do that? Joyce is one of Labor's biggest selling points. Obviously, I feel sorry for the people of New England, but sacrifices must be made.

 

[Nuggs Bunny]

Utter tosh

Another year, another cringe thread full of hot takes on why rural voters back the nationals from people who have never lived outside a major population centre.

Unfortunately the real answer is boring because the Nats win mostly by virtue of being the only party that shows up in rural electorates. The ALP barely campaigns in the country outside of regional centres. The Greens that contest those seats are not the professional progressives of the city but the old school hippies from the party of the 80's. The only other alternative to the nationals is a well-backed independent in the mould of Tony Windsor but they do not come along very often.

I've found that people in rural electorates vote less for what party they want to govern Australia and more for what their representative can get out of Canberra. Someone like Barnaby Joyce makes promises of a new bridge or a highway upgrade or an intermodal freight terminal before the election, and then if they win the election, the federal government gives him his money, whatever he promised gets delivered and the circle goes around.

 

[Northalives]

Another year, another cringe thread full of hot takes on why rural voters back the nationals from people who have never lived outside a major population centre.

Unfortunately the real answer is boring because the Nats win mostly by virtue of being the only party that shows up in rural electorates. The ALP barely campaigns in the country outside of regional centres. The Greens that contest those seats are not the professional progressives of the city but the old school hippies from the party of the 80's. The only other alternative to the nationals is a well-backed independent in the mould of Tony Windsor but they do not come along very often.

I've found that people in rural electorates vote less for what party they want to govern Australia and more for what their representative can get out of Canberra. Someone like Barnaby Joyce makes promises of a new bridge or a highway upgrade or an intermodal freight terminal before the election, and then if they win the election, the federal government gives him his money, whatever he promised gets delivered and the circle goes around.

That's it. Many in many of the rural electorates are reckon they are the center of the universe and if their corrupt representatives can get them some of the gravy, they get their vote.

Your statement: "The only other alternative to the nationals is a well-backed independent in the mould of Tony Windsor but they do not come along very often" is bang on and Labor did have the right idea of having a "Country Labor" type candidate but that went by the wayside.

 

[Nuggs Bunny]

That's it. Many in many of the rural electorates are reckon they are the center of the universe and if their corrupt representatives can get them some of the gravy, they get their vote.

Your statement: "The only other alternative to the nationals is a well-backed independent in the mould of Tony Windsor but they do not come along very often" is bang on and Labor did have the right idea of having a "Country Labor" type candidate but that went by the wayside.

IMO most voters are self-interested, I don't think it's that rural voters are more selfish that metropolitan voters but living in a rural electorate is different to living in a metropolitan one because of the area. If you lived in Box Hill but Kew gets a new sports park, you're probably close enough to benefit from it. If you live in the outer suburbs but the inner suburbs get a train line upgrade, you'll still get to work quicker. There's less of a direct association between sending your representative to Canberra for gravy than there is electing the government as a whole for your benefit. But when you live in a place like New England or Parkes, the only government investments you'll benefit from are what's built in your electorate because you're too far away from everything else.

I don't think it's worth Labor trying to crack the market though, chasing the rural seats isn't worth the investment necessary to pry them onside and keep them happy. The far western electorates in cattle country will probably always vote National but some seats can probably be taken by a teal-ish independent, like Helen Haines in Indi.

 

[Northalives]

IMO most voters are self-interested, I don't think it's that rural voters are more selfish that metropolitan voters but living in a rural electorate is different to living in a metropolitan one because of the area. If you lived in Box Hill but Kew gets a new sports park, you're probably close enough to benefit from it. If you live in the outer suburbs but the inner suburbs get a train line upgrade, you'll still get to work quicker. There's less of a direct association between sending your representative to Canberra for gravy than there is electing the government as a whole for your benefit. But when you live in a place like New England or Parkes, the only government investments you'll benefit from are what's built in your electorate because you're too far away from everything else.

I don't think it's worth Labor trying to crack the market though, chasing the rural seats isn't worth the investment necessary to pry them onside and keep them happy. The far western electorates in cattle country will probably always vote National but some seats can probably be taken by a teal-ish independent, like Helen Haines in Indi.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I feel that the rural seats/voters have a real independent streak about them so to speak because of the years of being relatively isolated. The old saying of the "tyranny of distance" still holds I believe and they view "outsiders" with a fair amount of trepidation and cynicism. Therefore, it's only natural that a person from their community would be trusted far more than an outsider and of course, the Joyces of today, just like the Doug Anthony's and Sinclairs of yesteryear understand this and play the "us versus them" game for all it's worth.

Waiting for seats to become semi-urbanised and changing there demographics like Richmond for example, is a a very, very long term thing and won't happen in the majority of rural seast. I agree with you that the ALP would be wasting money and resources in going down the country ALP thing again but I reckon it should start to "help" non National independents like Haines in Indi to gain a foothold in those electorates. How they actually do that is another matter altogether.