THERE’S something stirring in the waters for the Nationals around the north-eastern Victorian seat of Indi at this year’s federal election and it’s not the politically mischievous Booroolong frog.
For leader Barnaby Joyce, the lurking force he’s sensing swimming in the drink right now is the ripple of a grass roots movement behind local candidate Marty Corboy that could surge all the way to Canberra on July 2.
As the Minister for Water Resources with a self-confessed obsession for building dams, despite the nagging frog’s bureaucratic resistance, you could forgive him using an aquatic metaphor to describe the local candidate’s political fortunes.
But the ripple symbol also paints an alluring, current picture of the sentiment that’s seemingly rising on the streets of country, river towns like Wangaratta in Indi, for the Nationals’ local boy.
In conversations with party members – despite their obvious leanings – an immediate spark of fresh hope appears when mentioning Mr Corboy’s Canberra quest and his chances of victory.
These grounded, rusted-on Nats believe the candidate’s campaign has gathered a unique head of steam that contrasts sharply with the scenario facing his main rivals who they feel are caught in the rip of a personal battle that’s dragging them under.
Former Liberal Indi MP Sophie Mirabella has returned to tackle Independent MP Cathy McGowan who stole the seat from her by just a few hundred votes in 2013, after she held it for 12 years.
A tide of emotion swelled ferociously against Ms Mirabella, when retiring Independent MP Tony Windsor delivered the kiss of death by saying she was the one parliamentary member he’d miss the least post-politics.
Mr Windsor worked tirelessly on water reforms in the previous parliament to repair the Murray Darling Basin Plan but on his way out the door wasn’t shedding any tears for the potential loss of his old Liberal foe.
He believed the Victorian rural electorate was a classic example of where a non-country person was representing a country seat because they just wanted to be in politics, rather than championing local interests.
He said Indi was ripe for the picking by a strong independent candidate and placed Ms McGowan squarely in the centre of that fresh alternative spotlight.
As the mood shifted sharply, the Liberal MP was dumped from her safe seat, on the crest of a tidal wave of voter dissatisfaction; despite her party’s political fortunes flowing in the opposite direction.
Former WA National party MP Tony Crook sat on the cross-benches with Mr Windsor in the hung parliament and said Indi was by rights a Liberal rural seat but they’d pre-selected the only candidate who couldn’t win it, at this year’s election.
“It tells you something when a party wins an election in a landslide like the Coalition did last time amid dissatisfaction with independents in a hung parliament and yet a sitting shadow minister gets dumped,” he said.
“The people got it right but if the Liberals think they’re going to win Indi this time they’re kidding themselves.”
Out on the campaign trail this week, Mr Joyce cast some well-aimed political stones to bolster the political ripple that’s curling underneath Marty Corboy, during a speech he gave to National party faithful, at Milawa in northern Victoria.
The one-time maverick Queensland Senator bristled with typical bush bravado and stirred the simmering senses of local champions, with an impassioned call to arms that would have made AFL legend Ted Whitten proud on any given grand final day.
In fact, his heart-felt address would have been well at home in the liniment scented half-time change room of any football code played on any turf throughout the nation; especially his beloved rugby.
In it, Mr Joyce contrasted the bitter battle he’s also having in New England against another independent MP, Mr Windsor, who is ironically seeking a return to politics through his old seat.
“They have no power,” Mr Joyce said of political lone rangers in casting a simultaneous political stone at Mr Corboy’s rival and his own back yard challenger.
“The only way they can get power is to do this - they vote for the Labor party.
“And we had that problem in New England where everybody thought that everybody was a jolly good chap – hail fellow well met – and then when it really mattered they found out that New England had become a Labor seat.
“I do not want Indi to become a Labor seat – and who’s going to make that difference – you are.”
Mr Joyce said voters had to ask independent candidates one critical question – which of the two major parties they would support, if another hung parliament eventuated.
“If you do end up in this so called balance of power arrangement, then you, as the voter, deserve one ultimate respect for the future of your seat; for the future of your nation,” he said.
“There is one answer that people should be able to answer you straight away because they always tell you how brave they are; how honest they are; how forthright they are; (and) how against the political machine they are.
“If it comes down to your vote who are you going to back?
“Are you going to back the Labor party or are you going to back the Coalition?
“That is a very easy question to answer and you deserve that answer and you deserve to have that question answered for you and if they don’t answer it, suspect the worst.
“If they can’t answer that question, then how on earth could you truth them on anything else?
“Before you know it what happened to us will happen to you - they will vote against the live cattle trade and owner drivers so don’t let that happen to Indi.
“How you we going to win this - you work like ripples on a pond.”
Mr Corboy’s campaign was also swelled by Regional Development, Health and Communications Minister Fiona Nash and Victorian Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie who added strong backing to Mr Joyce’s visit to Indi this week.
In a region where team sports like AFL, netball, hockey and cricket are intrinsic to the community’s traditional fabric, the Nationals’ gang-messaging was deliberately targeted at exposing the independents as lone outcasts who struggle to score political goals.
At the opening of his office in Wangaratta office earlier in the day, right next door to Ms McGowan’s headquarters, Mr Corboy declared, “this is a winnable seat”.
At the same gathering, Mr Joyce said the campaign corflutes and posters were out on the ground, showing off the Indi candidate’s party brand, while television adverting would also hit the airwaves soon.
But he said the most powerful advocates in any campaign were, “you people”.
“You work out like ripples on a pond - you talk to people,” he said to the assembled crowd, outlining the grass roots power of multiplication to spread influence and flood Mr Corboy’s polling fortunes.
Mr Joyce also took another swipe at the troublesome independents saying they would try and claim responsibility for all the good political decisions but bad ones were the fault of others.
“It’s quite simple but the reality of politics is you’ve just got to get yourself close to the person making the decision,” he said.
Senator Nash reinforced the party’s collective core focus on regional communities while painting a positive outlook for farmers and the regions, as being a great place to live now and in future generations.
She also joined others in highlighting Mr Corboy’s seemingly ready-made capacity to arrive in Canberra and boost the party’s dynamism and wield influence over rural policies, if elected.
For his party, the Indi hopeful seems anything but an opportunistic city boy seeking a convenient place in politics just to sit on his hands for a couple of decades in federal parliament for a safe, conservative regional seat.
In fact, you get the feeling that, despite being a member of Mr Joyce’s political team, Tony Windsor would be impressed by his firm handshake which reveals the type of homespun inner determination that’s necessary to stand up and be counted, in the heat of political battle.
He may also like the fact Mr Corboy works in the family’s local stockfeed business, has farmers interests’ at the heart of his motivations, especially in relation to water reforms, and is adding another strong layer of competition to an already intriguing political fight.
Mr Corboy has close family ties to the Victorian region with six children of his own and another on the way and nine siblings including a brother named Ingnatius who is a budding musician and actor.
When not working in the family stock-feed business or supporting his big brother’s election bid, Ingnatius also works as a content producer and general hand for Sydney radio host Alan Jones.
In 2014, he was exposed as being a regular prank caller to the Jones show code named “Barbara” who took tongue in cheek swipes at topical issues like politics and modern youth.
The National party faithful may think Mr Corboy looks a winner at only quarter time – but Sportsbet has him at $6.00 and have now cut Ms McGowan’s odds of winning from $1.25 to $1.15 while Ms Mirabella’s drifted from $7.50 to $11.
Many analysts believe Ms Mirabella’s comments during a televised debate last month, about inflicting a $10 million funding cut on a local hospital after she lost Indi in 2013 to the independent MP, have caused irreversible damage.
Again in Milawa, Mr Joyce was happy to talk about the subtle power of burgeoning ripples for the Nationals in Indi, but resisted mentioning any other candidates by name.
However, he took an obvious swipe at their performances during an appearance on ABC television the night before saying “they can talk for themselves and they did an exceptionally good job of that last night”.
He said “the more they talk, the better you look Marty”.
For his part, Mr Corboy is largely playing a low key game in the media not looking to make waves – possibly not a strategy his more eccentric brother would adopt – preferring instead to offer himself as the alternative choice for voters, to dock safely in somewhat stormy waters.
He has already gained good experience with an apprenticeship on the party’s State executive and running for other state and federal positions, in recent years.
However the one ripple that should be counted above all others on election-day, for the National’s 36 year-old Indi hopeful, is the potential flow of preference votes he ultimately receives, from his rivals.