Among the notable features of this year’s election campaign was that Australia’s second-oldest political party was apparently missing in action.

At the same time, it managed to avoid the rout inflicted on its coalition partner.

The Nationals, who have represented rural and regional Australia in the federal parliament for more than a century, were nowhere to be seen as an identifiable, separate political party.

This isn’t unusual. The parties that make up the Coalition do highly targeted messaging in their electorates, but then fall neatly into policy lockstep when an election is called. This time, however, the Nationals seemed particularly shy.

Leader David Littleproud stopped issuing media releases on April 24, a full nine days before the election was held, and his speech to the National Press Club given that day was not available on the party website.

It is hard to imagine former party leaders Tim Fischer, John Anderson or Ian Sinclair being quite so reticent.

The focus of the commentary since election night has been on the Liberals’ failings, particularly in the major cities. You could be forgiven for thinking “Coalition” was a synonym for “Liberals”.

But as the Liberal Party tries to reckon with these failings, the Nationals are in a position of increasing power.

The great survivors of Australian politics now appear to be better at surviving than their coalition counterparts.........

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