A merger of the Liberal

Liberal Party of Australia

The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...

and National

National Party of Australia

The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...

political parties in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, which used to be in a coalition

Coalition (Australia)

The Coalition in Australian politics refers to a group of centre-right parties that has existed in the form of a coalition agreement since 1922...

 federally between 1996 and 2007 and are currently in a coalition government in Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, has been an on-going debate for decades due to the demise of the National vote. It is argued that the decline in the vote is due to the decline in the rural population as well as National Party policies becoming increasingly indistinguishable from Liberal Party policies. Such a merger would also likely see the involvement of the Country Liberal Party

Country Liberal Party

The Northern Territory Country Liberal Party is a Northern Territory political party affiliated with both the National and Liberal parties...

, given that it is affiliated with both parties. In July 2008 the majority Nationals and minority Liberals in state politics in Queensland merged to become the Liberal National Party of Queensland, led by Lawrence Springborg

Lawrence Springborg

Lawrence James Springborg is an Australian politician and became Deputy Leader of the Opposition in Queensland since 2 April 2009. He was deputy leader of the new Liberal National Party...

.

Merger

Merger plans came to a head in May 2008, when the Queensland state Liberal Party gave an announcement not to wait for a federal blueprint but instead to merge now. The new party, the "Liberal National Party", has a self-imposed deadline of late July for party registration. Queensland Liberal Party president Gary Spence has been accused by some in his party of misleading the public about his party's level of support for the merger. Queensland Liberal Party members are participating in a postal ballot, starting on 27 May and ending on 23 June. If a majority is achieved, a constitutional convention would be held in July to approve the new party, and would be finalised by way of formal agreement between the parties' two federal executives. See Liberal National Party of Queensland.

History

In Queensland, the only state where the Nationals are the dominant coalition partner in state politics, following Lawrence Springborg

Lawrence Springborg

Lawrence James Springborg is an Australian politician and became Deputy Leader of the Opposition in Queensland since 2 April 2009. He was deputy leader of the new Liberal National Party...

's re-election to the National leadership, support emerged especially from the National side for a merger of coalition parties in an attempt to address the declining National/rural vote and Labor's current domination of all levels of government.

In the 1980s, former Nationals MP Peter Nixon

Peter Nixon

Peter James Nixon AO is a former Australian politician representing the National Party ....

 undertook a review of the party and "concluded it should seriously consider amalgamating with the Liberals". Former Nationals leader Doug Anthony

Doug Anthony

John Douglas Anthony, AC, CH , is a former Australian politician. He was leader of the National Party from 1971 to 1984, and Deputy Prime Minister from 1971 to 1972 and again from 1975 to 1983.-Early life:...

 wrote not long afterwards: "Any objective and rational National Party member who read this report would have to accept that amalgamation was the only realistic course. Regrettably there are still too many who don't want to read it and who don't want to face reality, that the role of a specialist party looking after the needs of rural people is in decline."

At the 2007 federal election, the Nationals' vote declined to 5.49 percent, with the party winning only 10 of 150 seats. This was the lowest level of National Party representation achieved in the Australian Parliament. This included only one of the seats the Australian Electoral Commission classifies as provincial, Hinkler

Division of Hinkler

The Division of Hinkler is anAustralian Electoral Division in Queensland. The division was created in 1984 and is named for Bert Hinkler, the great pioneer Australian aviator....

 in Queensland, compared to four held by the Liberals and 16 by Labor. The election result of 2007 was indicative of a declining trend of support for the Nationals. The party's parliamentary representation has fallen with each of the last four Australian elections between 1998 and 2007, and the party's vote in this period has never exceeded 6%, compared to an average voting result of 8-11% for the Nationals, over the earlier two decades.

Country/National electoral results

Federal results in the Lower House Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years.... since 1919
Year	1919	1922	1925	1928	1929	1931	1934	1937	1940	1943
%	9.26	12.56	10.74	10.47	10.27	12.25	12.61	15.55	13.71	6.96
House Seats	11 of 75	14 of 75	14 of 75	13 of 75	10 of 75	16 of 75	14 of 74	16 of 74	14 of 74	7 of 74
Year	1946	1949	1951	1954	1955	1958	1961	1963	1966	1969
%	10.70	10.87	9.72	8.52	7.90	9.32	8.51	8.94	9.84	8.56
House Seats	11 of 74	19 of 121	17 of 121	17 of 121	18 of 122	19 of 122	17 of 122	20 of 122	21 of 124	20 of 125
Year	1972	1974	1975	1977	1980	1983	1984	1987	1990	1993
%	9.44	9.96	11.25	10.01	8.97	9.21	10.63	11.50	8.42	7.17
House Seats	20 of 125	21 of 127	23 of 127	19 of 124	20 of 125	17 of 125	21 of 148	19 of 147	14 of 148	16 of 148
Year	1996	1998	2001	2004	2007
%	8.21	5.29	5.61	5.89	5.49
House Seats	19 of 148	16 of 148	13 of 150	12 of 150	10 of 150