National Party of Australia

The National Party of Australia (formerly the Country Party) is a conservative Australian political party. It acts as the counterpart to the Liberal Party (the mainstream Conservative party) in the Liberal-National Coalition. Following the 2019 federal election, the party held sixteen seats in the House of Representatives, despite polling only 4.5% of the nationwide lower-house vote.

Policies
The National Party serves as the clingy, needy little brother of the Liberal Party and is more or less a carbon-copy, only with more rednecks and country hicks.

They supposedly exist to defend the interests of rural people. However, they are more than happy to harm those interests whenever their Liberal masters demand — for example:
 * Rolling over on the Liberals' National Broadband Network policy, which is, to all intents and purposes, destruction of said Broadband Network and replacing it with an already obsolete solution that will be far more damaging and expensive for rural areas than it will in the city, even in comparison to the outdated plan, let alone the difference between what the original network would give in rural areas compared to the new national network.
 * Supporting the interests of developers and mining companies over those of farmers and other rural residents, and endorsing projects for mining, fracking and coal seam gas even when these are locally unpopular.
 * Supporting the Adani Coal Mine in drawing vast amounts of groundwater at the expense of farmers' irrigation needs.
 * Voting to silence Australian Labor Party MPs who speak out about farmers' concerns, as when Julie Collins attempted to raise the issue of Australia's mouse plague in June 2021.
 * Ignoring the concerns of farmers about how climate change will affect them. And ignoring the concerns of farmers, full stop.

Name change
The party was called "The Country Party' until 1975 and the "National Country Party" until 1982. When the Labor Party developed a youth branch called "Young Labor" and the Liberal Party had the "Young Libs", the Country Party changed its name.

Party "personalities"
The party is graced with several "unique" personalities who continue to contribute to the illustrious and growing field of ignorance. These include but are not limited to:
 * Barnaby "Beetrooter" Joyce - The current Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Deputy Prime Minister, and leader of the party (2016-2018; 2021-2022).An advocate of "traditional marriage" when it comes to opposing same-sex marriage, but not when it comes to conceiving a baby with an ex-staffer despite having a wife and four daughters. He loves the traditional family so much that he had two of them. Resigned as leader as a result of this in 2018, only to return in a party leadership spill in 2021.
 * Michael McCormack - Former leader (2018-2021), ousted in a leadership spill. Also served as Deputy PM during this time.
 * Warren "Hyposomnia" Truss - The former leader, now retired. Yet another former Deputy PM.
 * Mia Davies - Western Australian state MP for Central Wheatbelt and Leader of the Opposition in Western Australia, appointed to this position in 2021 as a result of the Western Australian Liberals suffering an electoral wipeout and consequently losing opposition status.
 * David Littleproud - The current leader of the party, since May 2022.