Bob Katter is a maverick but he is a passionate man. He does what he sees as the best thing for Kennedy.

Maybe he will form the New Country Party and the Nationals will become an irrelevance. (Or are they already irrelevant).

It is well past time that Aussies have a new energetic believable party. It is also well past time that the the tired old Democrats, Labor and Greens were placed in dusty old drawers in a museum where no one would ever disturb them and they could be forgotten in a very short time.
Katter seems dinkum. I have always thought of him as good material going to waste. Perhaps if some of the zombies who inhabit the parliament were properly dealt with, we could get some new life with a bit of zing.

Labor in a museum?
Is that the same Labor that reigns in all States and Territories?
Is that the same Labor ahead in the federal polls 52%----48% 2pp?

Katter has something to offer?

These posts have the intellectual rigour of the lead article. NONE.

I think somebody already formed the New Country Party... not much success at all.

David, it is a wonder you journalists have not studied Asustralian politics during the Great Depression. Important points to remember as one who lived it as a sixteen year old working on the farm. Incidently my father was secretary cum president of the Dalwallinu Cockie's Union as it was called, a sworn enemy of the Primary Producer's association, because it was too tied in with in with Big Biz, the old monika for today's corporates.

It is so interesting that the Cockie's Unionists won the battle. Pollard, who incidently was a Labor Prime Minister passed a guaranteed wheat price protecting the cost of production, as anyone with a politics degree surely knows, but unfortunately not always our elected representatives.

The important point for most of us oldies ia that Big Biz is the farmer's enemy, as can also be the left-wing worker's unions.

Thus the producer is left by himself, and must always look after himself with wheat boards, potato boards, etc. Further, an example of Big Biz doing the dirty has been the rorting of the dairy farmers over here in WA who are near broke, and are only being saved by the value of their pasture-lands which can be used for other purposes.

Something us oldies learnt in the Depression was never trust the middle-men, they are worse than Jew wool buyers, not that we have to hate the Israelis, but it is a lesson learnt.

Agrarian socialism is the only way a farmer can be protected, whether it be right-wing or left-wing - not that it has to be Nazism or communism.

Please take a lesson, you young journalists, farming and Big Biz cannot mix, because it is always the cockie who gets caught.

This piece really does show the interesting place OO holds in discourse. As a relatively lightweight op-ed piece by an independent journo, it's not a bad read. the jokes pretty much work, and the language reads well.

As a serious piece though, it is pretty miserable and shows a pretty poor understanding of the Nationals, the Liberals, state politics, federal politics, local connectional and electoral factors, and the history and political behavours of both Katter and Joyce.

In my view, Katter is the perfect response to an isolated electorate. He has deep connectional ties with both community influentials and community non-influentials. He is seen as the champion of his community against a Brisbane government which doesn't understand north queensland, and a Canberra government which doesn't understand queensland. (Before anyone takes issue, I'm asserting that those are the value of his voters; they are not necessarily mine). The fact that his "championing" is not necessarily successful, is beside the point. If the Nationals had had any sense, they would have kept katter on the longest lead possible, allowing him to assert his local values even against party policy. They couldn't, so he left - and he will keep winning because he remains the connectionalist champion of that community.

Joyce is following a similar path, making similar cases to a similar voter base. How many people see Joyce as "our bloke down there in Canberra, telling those federal idiots how it is?" A fair few, I'd wager. And how many think the same of Boswell? Any takers?

The true test for the Nationals will be whether they have learned from the Katter experience. If they have, they will do everything in their power to avoid making Barnaby choose between what's good for Queensland and what's good for the Nationals - because the odds are he'll go for the former, even if it costs him preselection. Remember, he's got five years left in office.

Anth