THE Nationals Senate leader, Barnaby Joyce, wants the junior coalition party to position itself politically to the right of the Liberal Party, stridently and unashamedly advocating the conservative ideological views of its regional supporters.
In a frank address to the National Press Club yesterday, Senator Joyce said the 2007 federal election had been devastating for the Nationals because its members had drifted away from their traditions and values in the name of unity with the Liberal Party.
This decade of drift had resulted in the Nationals losing electorates to independent MPs "who in some cases express our traditional party values better than we have".
He said the Nationals should be to the Liberals what the Greens were to Labor: a party of definite ideas influencing the major party as it sought support from swinging voters at the centre of the ideological spectrum.
Senator Joyce said the Nationals should adopt a more conservative stance than the Liberals on emissions trading and protections for small business against unfair competition practices by bigger businesses.
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