Take a ride with Malcolm Turnbull's most intriguing minister

The flight from Brisbane takes nearly three hours. “And there’s another four or five hours flying time to reach the Northern Territory border on the seat’s western boundary,” Littleproud enthuses.

Has he visited it all? “Yeah, just about, there are one or two places, but yep I’ve made it my business to get around whenever I can. And frankly, I just love it.”

It's a long way from Parliament House in Canberra, where seasoned political observers were shocked by the little-known backbencher’s December elevation to Malcolm Turnbull’s cabinet.

The decision, it turned out, was the prerogative of the then leader of the junior Coalition partner, Barnaby Joyce, under the secretive Coalition agreement. Eyebrows were raised because an experienced Nationals cabinet minister, Darren Chester had been unceremoniously dropped to facilitate the promotion of a newbie.

Scroll forward just months though and that newbie is looking like an inspired choice - competent and confident at the dispatch box, acknowledged across the chamber for stressing a new evidence-based approach to policy, and increasingly admired within government ranks.

In cabinet, the 41-year-old Agriculture Minister is being noticed by the right people, and is firming as the next Nationals leader and a potential deputy prime minister. He has even won plaudits across the aisle for squaring up to the thorny issue of the Murray-Darling Basin agreement, and for swiftly turning on his own department over regulatory failures in the live sheep trade.

He famously described footage aired on 60 Minutes depicting animal cruelty on an export vessel as “bullshit”. He wasn’t doubting the film’s veracity, but rather expressing his incredulity that such a systemic breakdown could allow sheep to suffer and die in extreme distress.

DLP, as friends and staff call him, might have been Joyce’s selection, but Turnbull is so pleased with his new minister that he consults him frequently, viewing him as a reliable conduit to non-metropolitan Australia.

Treasurer Scott Morrison is also said to have been impressed by Littleproud’s persuasive submissions to the powerful expenditure review committee of cabinet. One government insider predicted Littleproud, a former rural bank manager, may eventually be invited to join the government’s razor gang.

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg says the newcomer is a strong question time performer, "all too ready to the lean over the dispatch box and give a good whack to Labor".

With his pale complexion, dark hair and matching dark-rimmed glasses, the married father of three sons presents as a slightly incongruous figure – a man who looks diminutive on TV, but is above average height. He looks bookish to the point of nerdy, yet smiles freely and socialises with ease.

Casting forward, the rookie member for Maranoa – a sprawling electorate in the true outback of Queensland and the only Nationals seat to return a “no” vote in last year’s same-sex marriage postal survey - could well be the leader of his party.

If leadership talk sounds a bit premature, supporters say it definitely isn’t. After all, Littleproud - who had already leapfrogged the outer-ministry to reach cabinet - emerged as a genuine alternative when Joyce’s career spectacularly flamed out in February.

There were really only two names mentioned once the counting started for the $400,000 post as Nationals leader and deputy prime minister. These were Littleproud and Michael McCormack, 53, who went on to take the prize.

The first-termer had pulled out of the race the night before the ballot as senior Nationals pressed for unity in light of the Joyce trauma. Nonetheless, by some accounts, Littleproud had “strong to very strong” support from colleagues in the region of seven to 10 votes. Eleven would have snared it in the 21-strong caucus.

He had put down an important marker, revealing he is interested in the leadership in the future and will have his backers. It may not be far off. Nationals leadership positions are usually spilled after an election loss, meaning a change could occur within a year if the polls are any guide.

Asked about leadership speculation and his own ambitions, Littleproud is quick to hose things down.

"Michael McCormack is doing an excellent job and will continue to grow as leader and, while you never say never in politics about what you might do later on, it is crucial that you stay focused on the job you have because if you get ahead of yourself, you lose that focus and that's in nobody's interest."

Littleproud knows how leadership ambition can be depicted in the hyper-competitive business of politics. It explains not only why he kept his powder dry but why he is is quick to talk up McCormack.

This is smart. The Nationals’ base in the bush is habitually loyal, almost to the point of religious zeal. “Out here, you’re Nationals or you’re nothing,” the truism goes.

If the Nationals resembles a church, it is one Littleproud has understood from birth, having learned at the feet of his father, an MP and minister in the Bjelke-Petersen government in the 1980s.

During the visit to Tambo and then on to Winton for its Way Out West Festival, Littleproud is fitted in the agri-politician template - brown RM Williams boots, light-tan chinos, checked blue shirt – no jacket, no tie. Smart, casual, country. 

As the plane makes its descent, the local member scans the surrounding country, pointing enthusiastically to patches of water adjacent the many streams cutting across the verdant plain.

“It’s where the creeks have spread out,” he remarks. “It’s the best I’ve seen it in a long time.”

The mini ag-tutorial continues as we taxi along the deserted airstrip, as he identifies the different types of grasses on the prime sheep and goat grazing country.

It’s all information gleaned from a farming background, and from years of contact with growers in his capacity as a small-town bank manager. “I never worked in head office, never wanted to," he states.

The distinction between the rural banker - or agribusiness manager - and the city bank executive is one he's eager to stress, even though he had opposed the royal commission along with his colleagues.

"I'll put my hand up, I mean I was in the banking industry and I had a view that I didn't think from the experience that ... there were systemic issues," he says.

He says the bank manager in the bush is an entirely different animal, someone who knows his or her customers "around the kitchen table" and can even be a social worker, attending births and marriages and funerals.

Seamlessly he switches to ministerial mode, arguing that capital is critical in the bush.

"Financial institutions are so critical to this nation," he says. "For me to grow from a $60 billion industry to a $100 billion, I need more capital and I need a finance industry that's prepared to do it all the way through the chain - I need them to be strong and I need them to have community confidence".

As a name, Littleproud might not cut a lot of ice down south but in Queensland, it has a political provenance. That fact explains a lot.

It explains the easy unaffected way in which Littleproud moves among constituents, as conversations appear to take-up from previous chats rather than start afresh. And it helps explain how just about everyone knows the MP despite his newness, and the electorate’s gargantuan size.

The mayor of Blackall-Tambo, Andrew “Marto” Martin, makes no secret of his fondness for the new local member. Like many in the area, he confesses to being a lifelong Nationals voter; he became disillusioned and only renewed his membership recently, because of Littleproud’s election.

“When I got to be mayor a couple of years ago, this bloke came in and hit the ground absolutely running, you know … he was born to it,” he said.

Martin recounted a conversation in which he told Littleproud: “You’re going to be a minister if you keep this up”, to which the then backbencher had responded, “Oh don’t be so bloody stupid.”

Martin now feels vindicated but hardly surprised, anointing his MP with the responsibility to transform the rural party.

“There’s no question that the old political landscape has got to change and this fella, in my opinion, represents the way forward.

“... but more importantly, he understands the relationship between his constituency and, yours,” Martin says, correctly pegging me as a city dweller.

Littleproud eschews leadership chatter but agrees on one thing at least: politics is in his blood.

“My father has probably been the most significant influence on my life. I was only five or six when he went into state parliament … it was always about community service, he was always the president of the Apex club, or the cricket club, or the tennis club, and because growing up in a small community, that meant something because you could see what the benefits of your contribution to the community was.”

Federal Nationals president Larry Anthony, who knows a bit about following a famous political father, says Littleproud’s rapid rise and fast mastery of the art of bush representation is no surprise. “He hasn’t been in the Parliament a long time but he’s showing great capability, he seems to have an old head on young shoulders,” says Anthony, whose father Doug Anthony was deputy prime minister under John Gorton and Billy McMahon.

Anthony says Littleproud displays “a level of confidence and determination which is unusual in one so new.”

“When you grow up in a political family, you get a unique insight into public life and into the trials and tribulations of it through your parents … so subconsciously, you’ve been preparing for this job all your life,” Anthony says.

It’s his greatest asset, according to the former deputy leader Fiona Nash.

“He’s probably one of the most down-to-earth people I’ve met, and certainly he’s one of the most down-to-earth politicians I’ve ever met,” she says.

Nash confirms there had been “a lot of strong support” for Littleproud in the leadership discussion. “I’m assuming that he said now is not his time, and I really respect that, very much so, and I think he’s making a massive contribution,” she says.

Littleproud’s opposite number in the Agriculture portfolio, Joel Fitzgibbon, acknowledges the minister’s strengths but has his own explanation for the near universal acclaim.

“Well, David Littleproud is fortunate to be coming off a very low base,” says Fitzgibbon. “I still believe that Barnaby Joyce was amongst the worst agriculture ministers the country has had, so surely he [Littleproud] can only do better and so far he has demonstrated that he’s capable of doing better.”

Not surprisingly for a Labor politician, Fitzgibbon says Littleproud’s biggest challenge now will be “breaking from the shackles” of his own party’s “inward” political culture.

Asked about the complexity of driving change and agreement on the Murray-Darling Basin, he said Littleproud had “demonstrated a willingness to work with the opposition" on serious public policy issues.

He says if Littleproud can spend more time talking to scientists and researchers, and less time talking to his base, “he’ll get my tick of approval”.

Littleproud himself describes his political approach as tough talking but says ultimately it must be measured by outcomes – even where the answers come from his opponents.

“I haven’t been afraid to dance when we get into the floor of Parliament … I’m passionate about the people I represent and the cause I represent as well, but I like to think that we can, outside of that, reach across the aisle and where there are those issues that we can agree on, that we can get bipartisanship. It’s important that we work on that and build on that, because the nation expects that of us,” he says.

To even be talking co-operation says something about Littleproud.

“I don’t have any malice in me, if I make robust statements in the Parliament, they’re not malicious statements, they're statements about passion for the people I represent. Outside that I want the outcomes and if I can get those outcomes in any way I can, and it is in a bipartisan way, I’ll do it, and I intend to continue doing it.”

It’s a statement like Littleproud himself – one part nod to the barrackers of his party, one part an appeal to strive for something higher.

smh.com.au