Mr Truss said on Channel 10 and quoted in the NDL, “We’re looking at all the options, not just merger. We’re looking at the potential to go it alone, or have a stronger role or a different role within the Coalition”.

This statement suggests that the Nationals have no firm vision of their future anymore and there a number of other facts pointing to a merger.

1. The Guyra and Armidale branches of the National Party have put forward a motion to their Annual Conference to merge with the Liberal Party;

2. The agreement of the National Party and the Liberal Party in Queensland to merge;

3. The written and publicly declared views of National Party “elders” Anthony, Sinclair and Nixon urging a merging;

4. The soon-to-be completed report by John Anderson into the National Party 2007 Election will most likely endorse a merger and;

5. To all intents and purposes now, the National and Liberal parties are already merged with the only thing missing being a joint letterhead.

Contrary to the editor’s inference that I would like to see the National Party and the Liberal Party merge, the opposite is true.

I would like to see them become a party, independent of the city-based majorities that the Liberal and Labor parties reflect.

For the Nationals to survive long term, they must break from being strapped to the Liberals and operate as a purely independent Party that is prepared to bargain with both city-based majority parties for the benefit of country people rather than being taken for granted by both sides.

There has never been a government formed in Australia without the need for a country representative.

In that sense, country representatives have always therefore held the balance of power. The Nationals held the balance of power but never used it to the benefit of those who put them there – country Australians.