The Nationals have an identity crisis, not just of who they are and what they stand for, but more importantly, who their leader is.
Let's start with the second problem first. For those who do not know the Federal Leader of The Nationals is Warren Truss. Despite public perceptions to the contrary (due in part to inaccurate media reporting of their titles), it is not Senator Barnaby Joyce. Joyce is the party's leader in the Senate only.
Truss and Joyce are very different characters. The former is steady, considered, carefully diplomatic, and a believer in the Coalition. The latter is more colourful, with a dry-witted bush turn of phrase, diplomatically more aggressive, and a believer in The Nationals more clearly separating themselves from their Coalition partners.
But such has been the force of cyclone Barnaby's persona ever since he arrived in Canberra in 2005 that if ever the media want a colourful and often contrary opinion, they contact Joyce. As a consequence he has become one of the best-known politicians in Australia, and in doing so he has inadvertantly created the perception in the public's mind that he, not Truss, is the party leader.
Not helping the situation is Joyce's propensity to give a personal opinion on a policy matter, which is contrary to official party lines, but such is his following that it is seen as so.
This was exposed recently at the party's national conference in Canberra where Barnaby took a hard line against emissions trading, just days after Truss had publicly re-committed to the Coalition's policy. At the conference, Joyce's line won out.
Even though Joyce has given the ailing party a new spirit and new media attention, his position in the party is not as popular. While he has risen to the position of Nationals Leader in the Senate, a leadership spill motion - as reported in the metropolitan press - put by NSW Senator Fiona Nash to replace Truss with Joyce never even got off the ground in the party room.
Clearly there are tensions about who is the right man for the job, with issues including in which chamber the leader should sit (traditionally the party leader has taken a seat in the House of Representatives, but there is no binding reason stopping a politician from leading The Nationals from the Senate).
But more importantly, there is tension about the direction the party should take.
For several years now, dating back to when Mark Vaile took over from John Anderson as Nationals leader, the party has been on a push to re-brand itself as the party for regional Australia, as opposed to its stereotyped imagery of the Nationals solely representing farmers.
The trouble then, as it is now, is that effort is inevitably overshadowed by The Nationals being part of the Coalition, and in all but a rare set of circumstances, speaking with the same voice as the Liberal Party.
Complicating matters is the party's powerbase in Queensland, where the state branch has merged with the Liberals to form the LNP.
But if The Nationals are fair dinkum about re-emerging from the shadows of the Liberals wearing this new 'regional' coat, it has no choice but to break from the Coalition, which worked wonders for the WA branch, and it needs to either change leaders or have Warren Truss start taking a harder line.
As supercoach Wayne Bennett likes to say, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got - and in The Nationals case that has been a diminishing number of seats in parliament.
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