The Federal National party and the Liberals are doing their best to make life as difficult as possible for National Senate leader Barnaby Joyce [pictured].
In today’s Australian page 4 there is a huge headline and article Joyce eyeing a return home.
QUEENSLAND Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce is prepared to challenge popular independent federal MP Tony Windsor in the western NSW seat of New England
The suggestion that Joyce should run against Independent MP Tony Windsor is madness. Tony Windsor is very popular and a great bloke who works hard not only for his electorate, but rural & regional people in general. If Joyce does pull Windsor on he will lose.
No doubt that is what his fellow National Party and Liberal colleges are hoping will happen. Joyce gone, problem solved, back to business as usual.
Barnaby wouldn’t stand a chance against Tony Windsor – Jesus Christ himself would be forced to preferences if he stood against Windsor in New England.
A terrific article by respected political commentator Scott Steel gives us an informed urban view of the goings on within the National party. Read the whole article here. Some of the juicier extracts from the article on Crikey – pollytics:
In one of the funnier stories of political aspiration filling the silly season vacuum, Barnyard wants a Reps seat, no Nat wants to give him one – but most Libs seem to be pretty keen on getting him out of the Senate.
Barnaby represents what is probably the final chance for the Nats to avoid oblivion by taking over the leadership, positioning the party toward a much more independent line and doing something profound in Nats circles – actually representing the interests of their constituents.
With such a widespread view in the electorate of the National Party being little more than convenient fools for the Libs (witness the way strong rural independents have been slicing their way through National Party heartland), there is no other National Party member in Parliament that could credibly change that perception or get away with such a huge repositioning .
He then goes onto which rep seat Barnaby should be looking at. As I’ve said previously, it has to be Maranoa. I’m still of that opinion expressed here , here and here.
After those 3 articles I had a call from Maranoa MP Bruce Scott’s office to advice that he already had the party endorsement for the next federal election and would be standing as the National Party candidate for the seat.
Maranoa is the obvious choice – it takes in his base town of St George and he has a strong local following – but sitting member, tired has been and the epitome of everything that is wrong with the National Party, Bruce Scott [pictured], is channeling Charlton Heston’s greatest NRA convention moments and giving Barnyard the “from my cold, dead hands” spiel.
I suppose that’s to be expected, old Nats like Bruce Scott think Lower House seats come with life membership options.
So, rather than the 65 year old Bruce Scott actually doing the most constructive thing he’s ever done in his political career – retire and give the younger Barnyard a chance to save the Nats from oblivion and themselves – he appears to be hell bent on keeping a rare, super strong National Party seat that should be used for developing the party leadership, all to himself.
Steel then cuts lose on senator Ron Boswell who is the one that suggested that Barnaby should take on Tony Windsor in New England:
Ron Boswell [pictured]- another National Party anachronism and traitor to the living standards of rural people everywhere –
either had an acute bout of arsehattery or flicked the bird to Barnaby by suggesting that if Joyce wants a Reps seat, he should take on the electoral powerhouse and Independent Member for New England, Tony Windsor.
Windsor and Boswell don’t much like each other; Boswell represents to Windsor everything that is wrong with the Nats – a coalitionist lickspittle that is too eager to sell out the interests of rural people for a façade of government influence and personal gain via promotion to the front bench in a Coalition administration.
Then Steel gives some advice of his own to Barnaby:
His best hope is to start stacking branches in Maranoa and boot out that useless has been Bruce Scott – which also wouldn’t harm the wider electoral perception of the Nats in the process.
If Barnyard culled some dead wood in his own party first, it could only help him in his pursuit to change the face of the Nats to make them appear more independent.
Well done Scott Steel, I could not have summed the situation up better myself. I have nothing personal against Bruce Scott. but as I printed in a previous article:
As one staunch National party member said to me just recently when discussing the issue,
‘Bruce is a really nice man, but he’s had his go, time to move over and let someone else have a shot – especially if it’s Barnaby‘.
If Bruce won’t stand aside, someone in the Party needs to ‘tap him on the shoulder.’
So that’s what Senator Joyce is up against. He has more to fear from those in his own party and the Liberal party than he does from anybody in Labor. Don’t get me wrong, my sources within the Labor party tell me that they ‘fear’ Barnaby more than anybody on the conservative side of politics. They’d love to see him gone, but perhaps not as much some of those from his own side of the benches.
It’s time for the National Party branch in Maranoa to take matters into their own hands, – for the good of the party and rural & regional Australia.
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