I once stayed in a city pub where the roof opened up as the obligatory afternoon Sydney storm rolled through. We scrambled to move our suitcase out of the torrent of water and went downstairs to see the manager.
He replied, without a hint of irony, “if you think your room is bad, you should see mine”.
I was reminded of that hotel this week when I read that Barnaby Joyce was complaining about the lack of available childcare in his electorate.
The deputy prime minister told the Northern Daily Leader that his partner, Vicki, struggled to return to work without adequate childcare as he announced that if the Coalition won a fourth term, it would fund a $3m childcare centre at Guyra.
Joyce was right in that research by the Mitchell Institute, at Victoria University, found that 35.2% of the Australian population lives in a childcare “desert” and New England had the lowest level of access in NSW.
But it was yet another example of identifying problems as if he played no part in his nine-year-old government. It continues a longer tradition of playing the anti-politician politician, appealing to those who want to get government off their back.
The second most powerful politician in the land could also add a list of other outstanding issues plaguing rural and regional electorates. These include a lack of evidence-based infrastructure planning, systemic health service failures, a majority of rural aged care facilities losing money, housing shortages to rent and to buy, natural disasters linked to climate change and water management.
These issues all play into rural contests in various proportions depending on the place. Instead of big strategic policy ideas to address looming challenges, we have instead seen more one-off grant programs from the Coalition.
Labor has largely steered clear of more obviously rural seats to concentrate their resources on winnable regional centres. Let’s face it, many rural electorates are allergic to Labor, notwithstanding the party’s birth in the bush.
Instead, Albanese has targeted semi-regional seats in Tasmania and Queensland while hoping to hold off the Coalition in seats like Hunter in NSW and Lingiari in the Northern Territory.
So the fact remains that most rural and regional electorates will stay in conservative hands. As always in rural politics, watch the margins.
A closer look at the 2022 federal election campaign provides proof of slow but changing trends in rural electorates.
First, community independent candidates, usually of the small-l liberal variety, are starting to make inroads.
The trend is strongest in Victoria and dissipates the farther north you travel. It reflects the Barnaby Line – the map of Joyce’s appeal which is strong in the north, but not so much in the south. It was a point reinforced by the former Nationals minister Darren Chester, who asked voters not to be “punish” him for his leader on Facebook.
“It’s not logical to say to me ‘a vote for Darren is a vote for Barnaby’ given I have publicly disagreed with him on several issues that are important to regional Australia’s future. And I didn’t vote for him to return as leader,” he wrote.
Nicholls in Victoria is the clearest regional seat in play on a whopping 20% margin, but things are also getting interesting in Cowper and Calare.
In Queensland, Hinkler is definitely worth watching, with the former state LNP minister Jack Dempsey running as an independent against the Coalition federal water minister, Keith Pitt. Groom, too, is fascinating because of the religious right and the inroads which may count towards the next election by a former LNP member turned independent, Suzie Holt.
Second, while independents remain a minority option for now, they are becoming a more culturally acceptable alternative in conservative rural seats as they use models like the “Voices For” movement to build volunteer bases that can rival party memberships.
For example, the Cowper independent candidate, Caz Heise, admitted she was formerly a member of the Greens on Australian Story on Monday night. As someone campaigning on climate change among other issues, it will be a test of whether that previously unacceptable link will hurt her in a National party-held seat battered by floods and fires, and whether her large supporter base can neutralise the National’s attack ads.
Third, the whole shift is attracting more media coverage, which has created a profile for candidates previously hard to build. It creates an expectation among voters that competition brings more attention and more promises. They have learned the magic of electoral marginality – a big change from past elections.
Fourth, all three factors are happening before we even work out the effect of regional migration as a result of the pandemic.
These trends have the capacity to change campaigning significantly. The campaign for the independent Rob Priestly in Nicholls has attracted a volunteer base of close to 500. They have moved their election night venue to accommodate a much larger crowd.
In Cowper, the volunteer base is about the same number. In Indi, the sitting independent MP, Helen Haines, can now call on a volunteer base of 1,800 people. Any party membership director would be pretty pleased with those numbers to draw on in individual electorates.
Every one of those volunteers has a social impact. In conservative communities, seeing people you know and trust stand up for something carries great weight. That is how rural seats have remained rusted on to the Liberals and Nationals for so long; the Coalition are part of the furniture and that doesn’t change easily.
There is a live experiment in Nicholls in these dying stages of the campaign. Texts and letters erroneously trying to link Priestly to the Labor premier, Dan Andrews, appeared in residents’ phones and letterboxes this week. Priestly supporters immediately took to social media to condemn the last-minute attempt.
Think of each one of the voters who called out that behaviour as a social algorithm and you can see how that power builds. Large numbers of engaged people will have an effect, at the dinner table, in the workplace, in the bakery and at the barbecue on this and future elections.
None of this means the death of conservatism in the bush or the last nail in the National party coffin. Rusted-off voters will desert the major parties at various times and will return when they feel the need.
But it does bring competitive market forces to rural electorates to make sitting MPs work harder for every vote. Free market parties would have to agree that’s a good thing.
