A Fork in the Road for the National Party
Life is full of interesting and not so interesting choices. Some seemingly mundane or innocuous choices turn out to be life makers (and breakers). Occasionally the noisy intensive choices turn out to be little more than a passing zephyr carrying dust. The National Party in Australia have just been presented with a ‘Fork in The Road’ moment. Tony Windsor’s decision to run in the Seat of New England against the incumbent National Leader Barnaby Joyce. The ‘Fork’ looks like this:
Should the National Party
a) Invest significant party resources trying save the Deputy Prime Minister from losing his seat? or
b) Provide the resources across all party members to maximise their chances of winning their own seats?
The Nationals will be unable to do both. Tony Windsor, the previous member for the seat retired due to health issues, which have from all accounts, now been put on a stable platform. To say he was popular in the seat is reasonable given that his first preference votes across the previous Federal Elections in 2004, 2007 and 2010 were +57%; +61% and +61%. Which means Tony Windsor has pulling power within his home electorate. He also has pulling power outside the electorate.
And here’s why the Fork in the Road is such a sharp one. It is likely that Tony Windsor will garner significant funding and campaign support from way beyond his electorate. His social media and local support will be high. If the National Party believe that a standard local campaign will be enough to get the Deputy PM over the line against Tony Windsor, they’d be deluding themselves. They know it. BUT, if they choose to focus on a ‘Save the Barnaby’ approach they will need to divert already stretched resources from OTHER electorate campaigns. In other words, run the risk of under-campaigning in a number of National held seats to save one seat.
I’d suggest it will be a pretty nervous time in the National Party right now. There will be a list of seats which the National Party will target for ‘minimal support’. To do so risks raising the ire of a strong and proud Agricultural sector support base who may just go with a protest vote on a seat by seat basis if the locals get a clue that they’re being taken for granted. I’d doubt any protest vote would be big enough to unseat too many National MP’s, but it may well be big enough to continue to undermine the funding support given to the Natonal Party through the electoral laws that pay per vote received above the 3% level.
The National’s Fork in the Road has them weighing up trying to save their Deputy PM or supporting the rest of their elected members. A continued dwindling of votes sees their funding base for the future eroded further and could well see them fall further, quicker. Do they sacrifice the Deputy PM to save their future? Fork in the Road
Here’s a little something I’d like you to think about. Are you really who you say you are? And, how do I know that I can trust you? Identity Theft is one of the most debilitating crimes a person can suffer for it strips away the very core of your own belief system and that…
Read More >‘World – we have a problem’ (apologies to astronaut James Lovell). We are killing ourselves with food and it’s happening at both ends of the continuum – millions starve each day whilst a gluttony caused obesity epidemic is killing others off in different ways. We have a growing global population requiring sustenance, whilst Climate Change…
Read More >Anyone looking at the final rainfall figures for Melbourne’s rainfall might be heartened by the news that the final result was about 10mm above the September average. Compared to last year’s disastrous result where we had about 12mm, it was over 50mm better. But I wonder if the final result, and the current ‘average’ isn’t…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber discussed the future of travel at the ANTOR session at The American Club in Sydney, NSW on the 24th of September. Along with Angela Smith from Roy Morgan Research, Martin Kelly from Travel Trends and Gail Rehbein from the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility Marcus proposed some of the emerging…
Read More >I’m heading to Singapore for a few days to facilitate a scenario planning workshop on behalf of the Asia Business Forum. There is something intimately exciting for a futurist to be going to arguably the most future focused of all countries and to spend just a brief time immersed there. There’s no doubt that great…
Read More >Greenwashing is a term used to define marketing actions by organisations, claiming to take an environmental approach to their products or services, when in fact, they are doing nothing or very little. Greenwashing is a form of marketing hype, and in turbulent times, many companies may be contemplating ‘sexing up’ their image by tapping into…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will be the key note speaker at the Australian Computer Society’s annual conference to be held in Adelaide on July 30 at the Adelaide Convention Centre With the theme ‘Survive and Thrive’ Marcus will discuss the likely issues of the near term future and why right now, organisations do not have…
Read More >The next Advanced Strategic Planning one-day workshop being run by The Australian Strategic Planning Institute will take place at Rydges in Adelaide on the 13th of July and bookings are now open The TASPI workshops are jam packed with ideas and processes to ensure that your operational, business and strategic planning efforts deliver the…
Read More >Hands up if you remember the dot com bubble? Or how about the Y2K bubble? Housing bubble? ‘Bubbles’ as they apply to all things economic are little more than an oversupply of positive confidence in a particular area of economic concern. In fact ‘Bubbles’ are caused by the SAME things as ‘Recessions’ just at opposite…
Read More >Just a handful of places are left for The Australian Strategic Planning Institute’s one day Advanced Strategic Planning workshop at Karsten’s in Melbourne on the 26th of May. Please note that there are no places available for the June workshops in both Brisbane or Sydney, and the Adelaide workshop in July is half filled though…
Read More >