The recent talk in the media of the plan by the WA National Party to trade the leadership of the Opposition for a guaranteed third winnable seat in the upper house was a sign of a political party that was in deep trouble.

Undoubtedly, the State government’s electoral reform changes and the latest redistribution have knocked the wind out of their sails.

These changes could see the party shrink to a new low of just five members of parliament out of a total of 96 seats, down from the seven elected at the last election.

Currently, they have Shane Love (Moore), Peter Rundle (Roe), Merome Beard (North West Central), Mia Davies (Central Wheatbelt), Colin De Grussa (Ag Region), Martin Aldridge (Ag Region), plus they lost the now independent James Hayword (South West) due to circumstances that, no doubt their selection committee does not want to be reminded of.

Add the rapidly shrinking pool of lay party members below the minimum cut-off mark of 500, and they are at risk of non-party status, no different to One Nation, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers and all the other fringe political parties.

The problem the Nationals have is their natural constituency of farmers has long since shrunk in numbers; today, there are less than 5762 farm family businesses spread across seven rural seats, each of which has, on average, 30,000 voters. Not enough to win even one seat if Ma, Pa and the grandparents all happened to live and vote in the same electorate.  

In fact, across the state’s 1.3 million working people, just 37,000 are directly employed in agriculture, not enough, even if they, too, all voted National, to hold in their own right, the three remaining Wheatbelt and Great Southern National Party strongholds of Roe, Moore and Central Wheatbelt.

Hence, their long-term search for a new constituency, someone, anyone, anywhere, to build a new political base on. 

Now, one would think that the big, growing regional coastal towns would have been the logical replacement for the declining farmer base and inland country towns, particularly considering their rapid growth over the last 50 years. 

For example, since 1971, Albany’s population has grown from 12,482 to 40,434, Geraldton from 15,118 to 32,830, Greater Bunbury from 17,778 to 76,452, Greater Busselton from 7,462 to 41,041, Port Hedland from 5,300 to 15,084, Karratha from 0 to 17,013 and Kalgoorlie from 9,201 to 29,832.

The Nationals have now had 50 years of demographic signals telling them they need to stamp their brand on regional cities, but their dismal efforts to date have left them today not holding one of them.

By any accounts something has gone horribly wrong; the failure to capture the hearts of the sea and tree changers and the minds of the miners is now going to cost them dearly at the next state election.

Political parties must have a growing base and the ability to change with their electorate, or they die; it’s as simple as that.  

Outside of the odd recent stint representing the seats of Kalgoorlie and Geraldton, it’s been slim pickings for the National Party in recent years as, unlike their eastern state’s cousins, they have not been able to reinvent themselves as the natural party of the regional cities.

It’s so bad that if past results are any indication, the 2025 election is likely to mark a new low in their long-term decline, a decline that started way back in the early 1950s following the high water mark of the 1947 election. 

This was the election that saw the old Country Party pick up 12 seats to come within just one  from outpolling the Liberals in the lower house.

Ever since then, it’s been a slow downward run, with the old implosion (1978 National Country party split) helping things along.

The problem the modern-day Country Party has is they can’t decide if they are friends or competitors with the Liberal Party.

They need the Liberals to win in the city before they can share in the spoils of power, but if not winning the big regional towns, they have less and less to bargain with to guarantee themselves a seat at the cabinet table.

Their politics is grievance politics no different to the Greens, or the Animal Justice Party; only their focus is to redistribute services to the bush.

Problem is, as the Commonwealth becomes ever more important with its funding of health, education, transport, communications and disability services etc, all eyes turn to Canberra to bridge the gap between urban and regional, leaving your local state MP largely irrelevant.

Outside of Royalties for Regions, which was no more than a billion-dollar political slush fund linked to photo opportunities, the State Nats have struggled to make the case that they are the key to better government services in the bush.

With no long-term strategic approach to building better economic outcomes via radical policies such as cutting red tape or funding big-picture infrastructure projects, they are left to promise police stations and recreational centres, things that don’t change the game to the viability of a country town.

For instance, they were never that interested in funding regional rail, at least not in the modern era, having led the charge to sell the network back in 1999 and then refusing to fund Tier 3 they backed Barnett’s roll-out of Metro Net.  Go figure.

Just as they would not allow the sale of Western Power or Fremantle Harbour and trade it for reinvestments in new regional infrastructure, like Ockajee, a container Port at Bunbury or another 1000 regional mobile towers.  A massive missed opportunity.

Having no core beliefs, other than agrarian socialism and anti-privatisation, they have nothing to hold their base when Labor comes knocking, offering a similar suite of policies designed to swap pork for votes in regional seats.

This leaves them floundering around in a policy vacuum, attempting to be all things to all people, going with the flow or at least what they felt was the vibe of the moment, voting for Aboriginal heritage, then against it, supporting the Voice, then walking away from it.

Political credibility comes with standing for something that is more than simply spending other people’s money in an attempt to buy votes.

This is why the National Party risk being left on the cross bench.  When the day comes, and the Libs once again garner enough votes to stagger over the line to form a government, they won’t need much of a majority to govern in their own right without the support of the three, two, or one remaining National party seats.

Add the fact there is no love lost between the long-suffering, country Liberal Party members and the National Party, the Libs won’t be in any hurry to share the spoils of office, certainly not once they get to the magic number of 30 seats out of 59, which would allow them to govern in their own right.

If this is the future, then it takes a special type of National Party politician to want to spend their political career sitting in the lower house, year after year, with no hope of ever being a Minister and no role other than to represent their seat.

This might just explain why Mia is bailing out, job done, time to do something else.

This leaves the only game left in town for an aspiring Nat MP is to aim for the Legislative Council, where you get to actually make a difference if the numbers are evenly balanced.

But the challenge to win enough votes to actually get into the Upper House is something that is much harder under the new single statewide electorate than the old system.

The new system of one vote, one value with just one big state-wide seat means that at the next election, each of the state’s 37 Upper House MPs will need around 48,000 votes, 2.7 per cent of the 1.8 million, to get elected.

You do the maths on a party that has fluctuated between 2.4 per cent and 5.3 per cent of the regional vote in the past eight elections, from a low of 25,204 votes in 2001 to a high of 59,776 votes in 2017 and 56,448 in 2021. It is barely enough to pick up one seat.

Granted, they only ran candidates in the three regional electorates, so in theory, under the new system, they could pick up additional votes from the metro area, but to do so, they will need to build a statewide narrative and ideally run candidates in all 57 seats, not just country seats, something I doubt they have the energy or resources to do.

At best, if they do a preference swap with the usual array of lunatic fringe groups on the left and right, including the anti-fluoride and pro weed parties, they may just scrape together enough votes to get them two upper house MPs, whether three, I suspect, is a bridge too far. Hence, the desperate attempt to do a deal with the Libs to trade the leadership for a place on their ticket. Without that deal, they are reduced to paying the preference whisperer to do dodgy deals with dodgy parties, with no guarantees of a successful outcome.

Hence, it’s a lottery as to who will win when up against the Christians 28,051 votes, Cannabis 28,473 votes, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers 21,212 votes, and One Nation 21,259 votes.  

No matter if they pick up two or three seats in the Upper House and hold three in the lower, it’s not going to be enough to elevate them back to their former status as a party deserving positions on the front bench. 

They are at risk of becoming yet another fringe party, long past their prime, which will, over time, fade away. 

The Greens, however, with their base of 91,849, are in a far better position because they have a support base across all the states with 1.8m voters, not restricted to just 400,000 regional electors. 

It might not give them a lower house seat, but their brand has always been focused on the upper house and holding the government to account, not actually being in government.

The National Party leadership no doubt will be annoyed with me for highlighting their current dilemmas, but like my efforts to enlighten the government on the looming train wreck of their heritage legislation, I’m just trying to help.

If the backbenchers were doing their job, you would not need political commentators, like me, to stand in front of the train waving warning signs… electoral cliff ahead.

It’s not rocket science to see the Nationals need to change direction; they need a massive makeover if they are going to survive many more elections.

Mind you, Grylls tried this first with Royalties for Regions and then with taking the brand to the Pilbara, but that flamed out when it looked like they were plucking too many feathers from the goose that laid the State golden eggs.

They either need to rebrand around the future of southern coastal sea and tree change regional cities or become the new party of the hard right.

There is, however, one problem with chasing votes in regional cities like Albany, Bunbury and Busselton; their battlers and the retirees are already well embedded with Liberal and Labor, both of whom can make promises they can keep should they become the next government.

Without a guaranteed coalition with the Liberals or the mettle to once again offer to do a deal with Labor, as Grylls once threatened to do, the Nationals can’t guarantee anything to anyone.

Now you can see why they were prepared to trade Shane Love’s title as Leader of the Opposition, plus his extra staff, for a place on the Liberal how-to-vote card. 

If successful, it would have been a small price to pay to prevent the hunger games that have started within their ranks, as they begin to circle each other, playing musical political chairs.

I see that Merome Beard has been first out of the blocks, voicing a different song to the rest, as she positions herself to take out Shane Love for the new combined seat of Moore and North West Central. 

The Liberals, on the other hand, have no need to play musical chairs as they were blessed with a big wipeout at the last election, so they are now lounging around in deck chairs, wondering who will be sitting in the empty seats, either side of them, when the music stops after the 2025 election.

So what should the Nats do?

The easiest thing is for them to simply join the Labor MPs, who jagged wins at the last election in super safe Liberal seats, on junkets to Europe at taxpayer expense, as they run down their time in parliament. 

You never know, a trip to the Netherlands could give them inspiration as to what’s possible if they energised themselves to do more than wander around country shows and field days.

The newly formed Dutch Farmers Citizens Movement won 15 of their Senate seats, with 20 per cent of the vote, a populist platform that represents traditional, conservative Dutch social and moral values right across the country.

I suspect that might be too conservative for our modern National Party, who prefer to signal their support for progressive issues, like the Voice and anti-business legislative changes like Industrial Manslaughter laws or the new Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act.

Just as they don’t have the hunger or political pragmatism in them to march to the right and replace One Nation, Palmer United, Katter’s Australian Party or the Shooters as the natural party of the hard right in WA.

Instead, they seem more comfortable drifting between the left of the Liberal party and the Right of Labor, the Country Road version of the Teals of the Bush.

The problem is that space is not the natural home of conservative country voters, or for that matter, battlers on social welfare.

So, some advice: first and foremost, muscle up, make it absolutely clear what you stand for, pick some fights with vested interest groups, go rogue, and shock the media into taking notice of the new real National Party. As for some policy ideas, try these.

• Heritage – extinguish heritage on freehold cleared farmland.
• Wind farms – no wind farms in the Wheatbelt without compensating the neighbours for the loss of visual amenities.
• Sell Western Power and Water Corporation to fund the next generation of regional infrastructure.
• Sell Fremantle Port to build Oakajee Port and expand Bunbury, Albany, and Esperance Harbours.
• Double down on gas, not renewables, to keep WA with the cheapest energy in Australia.
• Call the Climate Change catastrophes bluff and reallocate the government’s $2.7 billion to replace Collie Coal into completing the approvals for nuclear power.
• For every dollar that goes into Metro Net, demand a dollar for regional rail.
• Place failing regional schools into the hands of local communities to hire and fire teachers.
• Relocate the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Forest Products Commission, Tourism WA and the Rural Fire Division to Bunbury to kick start a second big city in WA.
• Dam the Fitzroy River and irrigate the north.
• Open the state Conservation areas and marine parks up to fishing, camping, and hunting.
• Shut down dysfunctional indigenous communities if kids are not going to school.

I could go on, but you have got the drift. If the Nat’s want to survive, they need to take some big policy risks and be more than Robin Hood and Father Christmas wandering around with the Royalty for Regions chequebook that requires the Liberal Treasurer to cash them.

In the meantime, the Liberals hopefully have told the Nationals they are dreaming with their deal. Both parties need to muscle up and compete against each other in the policy space for ideas that will ensure regional WA is not left behind by the latest transfer of electorates from the regions to the city.