An important beneficiary of agrarianism is the National Party of Australia, which first entered Australian politics in the early 1920s as the Country Party of Australia. Set up as a voice for rural Australians, the party grew out of farm interest groups that had been established from the mid nineteenth century. Richmond (1978:104) argues that ‘[m]any country people objected to the Labor Party and its talk of socialisation of land; but they also objected to the city domination of the larger non-Labor parties’.
The early Country Party therefore set out to establish itself as a third force in Australian politics. This position was clearly illustrated by the words of the first Country Party leader in the Commonwealth Parliament, W. J. McWilliams, on 10 March 1920:
The Country Party is an independent body quite separate from the Nationalists and the Labor Party. We occupy our own rooms. We have appointed our own leader and other officers. We take no part in the deliberations of the Ministerialists or of the Opposition. We intend to support measures of which we approve and hold ourselves absolutely free to criticize or reject proposals with which we do not agree. Having put our hands to the wheel we set the course of our voyage. There has been no collusion; we crave no alliance; we spurn no support; we have no desire to harass the government, nor do we wish to humiliate the opposition. (McWilliams 1920:250)
In spite of these protestations of independence, the party was, by 1922, in coalition with the Nationalists and it used its role in subsequent coalitions very effectively to gain cabinet positions and policy influence out of all proportion to its electoral performance. With dominance of the agriculture and trade portfolios, the National Party has managed to pursue farmers’ interests effectively. Through the interventionist years, agrarian objectives were pursued openly. More recently, these values have been protected less transparently while still being drawn on rhetorically to retain National Party support. Apart from a general inclination to look after rural interests, specific National Party policies are not easy to identify. Woodward (1985:61) has described National Party policy as ‘a strange blend of conservatism coupled with support for radical government intervention in certain economic and social areas’. In recent years, the dominance of the neo-liberal paradigm across government policy has blunted the party’s capacity to deliver largesse to its constituency, however, it has achieved some expensive concessions to buffer the impact of these policies. For example, deregulation of the dairy industry in 2000 was accompanied by a $1.74 billion structural adjustment package, funded by a levy on milk, which provided ‘substantial adjustment payments’ to dairy farmers (Truss 2000). This was augmented with packages to assist communities in dairy-farming areas. A further $159 million was added to the package in 2001. The Australian National Audit Office (2004:14) reports that ‘some 30 000 farmers were granted [Dairy Structural Adjustment Program] payment rights, with an average payment right of $54 300’. A further $100 million was allocated to 7735 farmers (Australian National Audit Office 2004:16) under a Supplementary Dairy Assistance Package. This supplementary package was introduced to provide ‘an additional one-off payment to eligible dairy producers who were severely affected by deregulation, and whose eligibility for DSAP was unintentionally limited’ (Australian National Audit Office 2004:26).
While the National Party’s rhetoric continues to present its objectives in terms of being the sole true representative of farmers and rural people, in recent years that claim has become less convincing. Verrall et al. (1985:9) observe that ‘the National Party has by no means a monopoly of the conservative rural vote’ and they suggest that ‘National Party seats are not typically rural and indeed…there is no typical National Party electorate’ (p. 11). Nevertheless, the National Party’s web site (<http://www.nationals.org.au/About/values.asp>) makes the claim that ‘[w]ithout [t]he Nationals, government policy would be determined by a substantial majority of city-based parliamentarians’. The implication is the very agrarian notion that city folk do not understand the ‘bush’ and cannot be trusted to protect rural interests. As has been argued elsewhere (Botterill 2006), while farmers and their representatives are not reticent about engaging in debates about non-farm policy, they are quick to cast doubts on the views of rural policy commentators who do not have direct ties to the bush. The Nationals also reflect the idea expressed in Aitkin’s view of country-mindedness that what is good for the bush is good for the country. As Jaensch (1997:299) has argued:
As populists, the members of the party believe fundamentally in the virtue of rural people, rural interests and rural morality, not only for rural areas, but as a model for the whole country. It logically follows, then, that any actions which will protect, support and bolster rural people and interests are justified for the good of the nation.
The National Party taps into these sentiments very effectively. Nelson and Garst (2005) have looked at the role of values-based communication ‘as a means to signify political identity and establish community with audience members’. They describe this as a ‘social purpose of values-based language’ and explore the impact this language has on the listening audience. They argue that ‘values, like political parties, serve as important foundations for a citizen’s political identity’ (Nelson and Garst 2005:490). Brewer (2001) has also examined the issue of value framing in political communication and the links between value-based political messages and core values. He argues that:
value frames…share a feature that sets them apart from other sorts of messages: [t]hey associate an issue with a core value. Thus, a value frame may shape opinion in a more subtle way as well: [i]t may encourage audience members to form opinions on the basis of the specific value invoked by the frame. (Brewer 2001:45)
In his study of parties and party systems, Sartori (1976:329) described the use of imagery in party promotion, noting that ‘parties communicate to mass electorates via party images and…much of their electoral strategy is concerned with building up the appropriate image for the public from which they expect votes’. While the effectiveness of the National Party at engaging its supporters is not surprising, this chapter argues that the broader community shares the values being drawn on—thus generating support from a wider constituency than the party’s small electoral base would suggest. The National Party is very effective at using images in its political messages that tap into agrarian values, among its own supporters and across the wider community. In Parliament, National Party representatives play up the urban–rural divide. Verrall et al. (1985:8) see this rural–urban cleavage as ‘an essential and key notion in understanding Australian politics’ and it has been used regularly as a basis for attack on the Nationals’ political opponents. In a press release, Agriculture Minister, Peter McGauran (2006b), began his attack on the opposition spokesman with ‘[t]he Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has today reminded rural and regional Australia how little the Labor Party knows about drought’. Later in the same release, he again made the point that Labor was ignorant about rural Australia, stating: ‘If Mr O’Connor had any idea of rural and regional Australia, he would know only too well that this region is part of the South West Slopes and Plains EC declaration’ (McGauran 2006b). In apparent contradiction to this statement, but still playing on the city–rural divide, the minister had responded earlier in the year to the failure of O’Connor to win preselection for his seat with the following statement:
The forced exit of Labor’s Agriculture spokesman, Gavan O’Connor, from Federal Parliament will be a serious loss to rural and regional Australia, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Peter McGauran, said today.
Mr McGauran said that, as a former dairy farmer, Mr O’Connor was the only member of the Labor Opposition to have a practical understanding of farming.
‘Mr O’Connor has been a lone voice for farming inside a city-centric and union-dominated Labor Party,’ he said.
‘His dumping at the hands of factional bosses will rob Labor of the only practical understanding of farming and regional policy it has.
‘It highlights Labor’s disregard for farmers by so unceremoniously sending its only ally into the political wilderness.’ (McGauran 2006a)
Another National Party Senator described O’Connor as ‘the quintessential city slicker. He rarely gets out of Melbourne, unless he is coming to Canberra, and he is trying to tell this place that he cares about rural and regional Australia!’ (Nash 2005:97). Consistency of argument is clearly not important but appeal to the agrarian value frame is.
Although the long-term future of the National Party has been the subject of continuing speculation and discussion (see, for example, Aitkin 1973; Green 2001; Jaensch 1997; Malcolm 1989; Richmond 1978), the adoption of agrarian imagery by other political parties would not be a simple undertaking. Although the Liberal and Labor Parties have held and continue to hold rural-based electorates, they cannot simply pick up the National Party’s mantle as the representatives of rural interests. Research by Nelson and Garst (2005) suggests that it is risky for a party to appeal to values with which it is not generally associated. They suggest that values-based political messages are persuasive but these messages are not well received if they come from an unexpected quarter. The research found that ‘[r]ival party speakers…were punished when they used unexpected language’ (Nelson and Garst 2005:510). Brewer (2001:59) also cites research that finds that ‘citizens may reject a frame when they perceive that it originates from the “wrong” side of the ideological or partisan fence’. This suggests that Labor Party politicians who use agrarian language are more likely to evoke suspicion and hostility than a positive response. The Coalition has tapped into this on occasion. For example, in a parliamentary debate in 1996, a Liberal member of the newly elected Howard Government stated:
I am pleased to see that the [M]ember for Hotham [Simon Crean] is here too, because he had a time as the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, as some of you may well remember. They bought him a pair of moleskins and some elastic sided boots, and got him a Driza-Bone, with the tag still hanging off the back of it after six months. (Ronaldson 1996:669)
This imagery is effective at closing down debate. If you are not a farmer, you don’t understand farming; ergo you are unqualified to comment on farm policy. When this is coupled with a general sympathy for farmers anchored in a residual agrarianism in the broader community, it creates an environment in which there is no political advantage to be gained from criticising farm policy and thus policy settings receive little analysis.