Van Onselen claims: “… it would be absolute folly for the conservative side of politics if the Coalition were to disintegrate, and it would hurt the Liberal Party at least as much as it would the Nationals.”

He makes some spectacular leaps of logic, most of which are so fanciful I don’t know where to begin in pointing out how ridiculous they are.

I’ll work through them in his order.

1. The Nationals would lose a share of power incumbency brings.

Why? They’re in opposition, they don’t have any power. Quitting the Coalition would not preclude them from sharing power after a future election, not to mention the influence they could exercise from the cross benches like the Greens.

2. The Nationals are a political force able to disproportionately deliver for regional communities because they are regularly part of a Coalition in government.

The Federal Nationals are in terminal decline because of the Coalition. People can’t distinguish them from the Liberals. It’s arguable how much they delivered under the Howard Government.

3. The Western Australian standalone model is high risk.

Van Onselen claims the Nationals would have been sidelined if Colin Barnett had won an absolute majority. That’s wrong because there was no way the Liberals could have won control of the Upper House. Brendon Grylls admits his luck in holding the Lower House balance of power, but always expected to hold it in the Upper House.

4. If the Coalition splits, Barnaby Joyce would become Nationals leader and take the party down a regional populist route.

Yes. I can’t see the political downside to this for the Nationals.

5. The loss of support for the Liberals if Nationals run against them in a large number of electorates would be fatal.

I don’t imagine the Nationals would be serious contenders in city fringe seats. If they did stand in seats like McEwen to bolster the Senate vote, chances are preferences would flow to the Liberals anyway. The Liberals have won marginal seats in three-cornered contests, eg McMillan.

6. The Nationals may offer voters double-sided how-to-vote cards with the option of preferencing either of the main parties.

I’d like this to be true, but it’s pure fantasy as far as the eastern states are concerned. If there is a Coalition split, preferences will still go to the Liberals.

7. Frome is an example of why a split would be political suicide.

The Liberals can thank themselves for the Frome debacle. See point 6 for the more realistic scenario in the eastern states.

8. A Federal Coalition split would cost the New South Wales Coalition victory in 2011.

Why? The NSW Coalition is solid and the government is in terminal decline.

9. Different coalition arrangements at the state and federal level would be “nothing short of dysfunctional”.

Van Onselen should read some political history. The Victorian and Queensland Country Parties stood alone during many years of a stable Federal Coalition. The Victorian Nationals contested the 2006 state election independently. It wasn’t their fault the Liberals didn’t win.

10. A federal break-up would destabilise the WA Government.

It would have no impact.

11. The Nationals would probably try their hand in Tasmania.

Fanciful. If they did it would be unlikely to succeed and would not damage the Liberals.

12. The alternative to coalition is electoral oblivion.

The Federal Nationals are staring down the barrel of electoral oblivion if they stay in coalition, especially while in opposition.

I had to check the byline on van Onselen’s article. It reads like something John Howard might have written.

Howard was masterful at massaging National Party egos to keep them on a short leash. I may be wrong, but I don’t think Howard ever needed the Nationals to form a majority government.

However, like Jeff Kennett in Victoria, bringing the Nationals into the tent by offering white cars silenced a potential critic in the bush.

Quitting the Coalition would enable the Nationals to articulate their own policies in the lead-up to the next federal election.

There is no reason an alliance or coalition could not be formed after the election.

Poor Peter has stood in John Howard’s shadow for so long he hasn’t needed sunglasses since 1998.

There was a similar cartoon in The Australian yesterday. It showed Peter standing variously next to Alexander Downer, Howard and Brendan Nelson with the words “tick tick tick” in the background.

In the final frame, Peter was alongside a watchful Malcolm Turnbull and the text read “Pop”!

The time bomb was gone. I forget the catchphrase; it might have been “plenty of ticker, but no timing”, or something like that.

Peter enjoyed the eulogies this week (he described them thus).

Someone said he was the best leader the Liberal Party never had. I wouldn’t go that far; he could have been leader if he wanted to, which in my opinion shows a lack of leadership ability.

Compared with state leaders Ted Baillieu and Troy Buswell he’s doing a pretty good job in unenviable circumstances.

I didn’t hear his budget reply speech, but reading the news summary it sounds quite good.

Nelson has got a long tough road ahead of him to restore the Liberal Party’s fortunes. He can’t simply wait for Rudd to stumble, he needs to develop an alternative vision.

Cutting the fuel excise by five cents a litre has been criticised as populist. But isn’t that what politicians should be trying to do … be popular?

Of course, they also need to be responsible and that’s an arguable proposition in relation to the petrol excise. But that’s also the job of politicians … to argue and formulate policy.

At least Nelson is having a go. The Liberals were totally rattled after the election defeat and it’s in the national interest for them to regroup and form a strong opposition.

• The Nats defied doomsday predictions and retained party status.
• The Liberals and Greens failed to increase their primary votes.
• The media darlings (Greens) won't win a lower house seat.
• Labor no longer holds any seats in Gippsland.
• The Labor primary vote in Mildura was just 6.53%. Has the ALP ever polled that badly in any seat anywhere?
• The winners: Steve Bracks and Peter Ryan.
• The losers: Ted Baillieu (despite his bluster) and the Greens. 

Several high-profile members of the Traralgon ALP branch have quit the party and one, Lisa Proctor, will stand as an independent and direct preferences to the Nationals.

Another who resigned, Derek Amos, formerly held the seat for Labor. Apparently the current Member doesn’t live in the electorate.

I met Proctor when I was consulting for Pauls and she struck me as an impressive lady. As a Latrobe councillor she was a fierce advocate for Traralgon. I had no idea she was a member of the ALP until reading The Age article.

I’m pretty sure she would have been opposed to Traralgon’s forced amalgamation by Jeff Kennett with Morwell and Moe to form Latrobe. That was probably one of the worst amalgamations in the state and it caused a lot of bitterness in Traralgon, which had a strong identity as the capital of Gippsland that has now been devalued.

The Nationals candidate in Morwell is Russell Northe, a relatively young man who lives in Morwell and formerly played football for Traralgon. He’s a good candidate and can be expected to poll between 15 and 20 per cent. If it’s at the higher end he could win the seat.

Assuming the Liberals are ousted first in the preference count, either Northe or Proctor will win on the other’s preferences if the Labor primary vote is restricted to less than 45 per cent.

That will be a significant blow for Labor in a working class industrial heartland.

The possibility of Bracks losing the election is remote, but it now appears possible.

For the Nationals, if they happen to win Morwell and Benambra, where sitting Upper House member Bill Baxter is running after the long-serving Liberal MP Tony Plowman retired, it would be their best result for decades.

Preferences have to be finalised this weekend and there’s talk that Labor and the Liberals will do a deal to freeze out the Greens and Nationals. I think the only seat where the Nats will need Labor preferences is Shepparton, although pundits have mentioned Rodney, Swan Hill and leader Peter Ryan’s Gippsland South electorate as well.

Labor appears vulnerable to the Greens in a couple of inner city seats, so they would clearly benefit from Liberal preferences.

It’s shaping to be a much more fascinating election than first thought.

The National Party has a massive struggle ahead to survive. Although the Liberals don’t like it, Barnaby’s approach is the only viable one.

The alternative is a proliferation of rural independents and maverick right-wing nutters.

In terms of Western Australia, I think Brendon Grylls is doing the right thing for his party and the State. I don’t know if he has the charisma to pull it off. We’ll have to wait and see.

I used to visit Crikey a lot when Stephen Mayne was writing. He had some excellent sources in the Victorian Liberal and Labor Parties.

The site doesn’t have much free content these days, so I’m interested to try out the subscription service and see if it’s worth keeping.

My opinion was with Nationals Senator, Barnaby Joyce, that non-political fees for student services should be retained. This would have meant ongoing funds for student sporting clubs, arts groups, etc. The Labor Party seemed to be accepting a compromise along these lines as well.

I feel the bill was inspired more by Liberal ideology than a practical need to reform, similar to the industrial relations changes. Senator Joyce said:

"This was driven by a cabal of people … who are driving this issue out of some sort of political nirvana that they want to achieve rather than out of the impacts that this will have on the ground.

We could have got rid of compulsory student unionism, we could have made sure that the funding mechanisms for political purposes had been stopped and we could have also preserved what a university is. I don’t think this is a great statement for us to finish the year off on."

I don’t support Labor, but I like what Senator Joyce is doing. It’s a shame the Family First Senator didn’t join him in brokering a compromise on this issue.

That may be so. I haven’t studied the detail, and frankly it’s of no great interest to me.

I object however, to the massive abuse of public funds to promote Liberal Party policy through the media.

TV ads started today and I’ve got no doubt there will be full-page newspaper ads to follow. The ads haven’t illuminated me on the detail of the policy. They are propaganda.

I thought I heard today that Australia donated half a million dollars towards earthquake relief in Pakistan. Beazley thinks the media blitz is costing $100 million. Howard denies this, but the figure must be in the millions.

The unions are running ads as well, which I suppose gives the government some right of reply. But what we’re seeing is overkill.