The National Party has lunged for the button marked 'break glass in emergency' by drafting the contrarian populist agitator, Matt Canavan, to its leadership.

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The 45-year-old, coal-loving senator was an unusual choice suggesting that the party finally understands the clear and present danger on its right flank.

Its urgency is, at least, proportional.

Unlike the Liberals, the Nats recognise that things are dramatically shifting in Australian politics. As such, the continued dominance of the establishment parties can no longer be assumed.

The prime opponent now is Pauline Hanson's One Nation party with its uncomplicated nostalgia for a once perfect Australia - read: predominantly white - since ruined by woke cosmopolitans, and so-called "mass" immigration.

As the electoral bases of the right splinter and realign, Canavan has been tasked with a clear mission of neutralising the Nats' most famous former face, Barnaby Joyce.

It will be a fascinating match-up pitting the economic populist Canavan against the two politicians now so established in the electoral terrain that their surnames are superfluous: Barnaby and Pauline.

Since Joyce jumped ship, complaining of being sidelined under David Littleproud, a succession of opinion polls have put One Nation ahead of the Coalition and drawing closer to Labor's vote share.

Whatever his deficits in urban Australia, Joyce remains popular in the bush and was once lauded by Tony Abbott as the nation's best retail politician.

While Hanson might quibble, there is little doubt that her success in coaxing Joyce across has been a major factor in One Nation's flatulent rise. That will lead to ego-clashes and leadership tensions in the future but in the short-term, the sharpest pain is being felt in the Nats and by extension, the Liberal Party.

It is a sign of the perilousness now gripping the establishment parties of the right that across its combined leadership, none of the four leaders elected after the 2025 rout is in place.

Of the replacements installed in the last month, none holds a city-based lower house seat.

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At its core however, the colossal challenge facing the Liberals on the one hand, and the Nationals on the other, is dangerously contradictory.

An illustration of this problem came in Littleproud's odd "I'm buggered" resignation press conference last Tuesday.

Boldly marking himself as the most effective Nationals leader since John "Black Jack" McEwen, Littleproud listed off a series of policies in which the Nats had dictated terms to the Liberals.

These included the junior partner's trenchant opposition to the Voice referendum, the Dutton Coalition's adoption of a nuclear power plant policy, the Liberals' agreement to a controversial "divestiture" power against the major supermarket duopoly, and finally the abandonment of a 2050 net zero emissions target.

You can see the problem right away if you're a city-based Liberal - not that there are many of these left.

The nominal achievements of Littleproud's leadership seem to align uncannily with the list of reasons that Liberals have been wiped out in urban Australia.

Which is to say, the outsize influence of the junior party within the Coalition may have saved Nationals' seats in regional-rural Australia, but they came at the expense of Liberal Party holdings in its leafy heartland.

So what now? If anything, it seems likely that this problem may deepen.

Newly installed shadow treasurer Tim Wilson - another high-risk, high-reward selection - believes Canavan's intention to mark out a more distinctive conservative identity could actually have an upside for the Liberals.

According to his somewhat heroic reasoning, the Nats being Nat's in turn, frees up the Liberals to be more distinctively liberal. What is less clear is why that hasn't worked to date.

This recalls the hilarious logic of HG and Roy who asked many years back that if the Australian fast bowler Merv Hughes could take so many wickets when he was overweight, imagine how much better he'd be if he was twice as fat?

A clear danger for Wilson and his Liberal colleagues is that economically populist and interventionist positions taken by the Nats under Canavan will either have to be adopted by the Liberals or actively disavowed.

What this means for Coalition unity is anyone's guess.

Nothing about Canavan's political style suggests he will give Liberal discomfort much thought. His pitch to colleagues was largely based around his determination to see off the threat from One Nation.

Presumably, this will involve matching or even outdoing Hanson's populism on some matters, while delineating a difference on others - such as her offensive remarks suggesting there are no good Muslims.

Hanson knows she is now in a more direct fight for the hearts and minds of regional Australians. You can tell that by her attempts to position Canavan as "woke". Other extreme policies and rhetoric will likely follow.

For the Liberals, all this angularity spells trouble. Already dragged to the right, Angus Taylor's leadership turns on developing a credible package of policies in the cities.

Yet so far, he has been even less clear in condemning Hanson's discriminatory rhetoric than has Canavan.

Paradoxically, weakness seems to be among the strongest forces in politics.

Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times' political analyst and a professor at the ANU's Australian Studies Institute. He hosts the Democracy Sausage podcast. He writes a column every Sunday.

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