Travel no perk for Duncan’s ambitions

WENDY Duncan is a name few Western Australians would be able to place, yet ask political observers who's who in the state's parliamentary jungle and her name comes up time and time again.

Go to the Nationals WA website and Ms Duncan's face sits smack bang in the middle of the home page flanked by eight other political leaders, including Brendon Grylls.

Some name her as the power behind the throne, while others call her the other half of very tight-knit political pairing.

Whatever the case, Ms Duncan may not have the visibility of her official leader but she is certainly in a political sweet spot - one that was earned by hard yards, or country miles, in fact.

Premier Colin Barnett owes his government to Nationals WA, which holds the balance of power and chose to form a government with the Liberals after a week of negotiations with both major parties.

Now the party's leader in the Legislative Council as the member for Mining and Pastoral, Ms Duncan was asked to become president of Nationals WA about five years ago. At the time the party was broke and facing the prospect of its extinction as political force following changes to the gerrymander that had previously given regional voters greater political representation.

An alliance with the Liberals was proving unsatisfactory because it hindered the Nationals' campaign platform.

After the 2005 election, the new leadership decided to change things.

"It is amazing how imaginative you get when you face certain death," Ms Duncan told WA Business News.

"Brendon took over and we had a look at whether we were needed any more, we had to test the market and see if we were still relevant."

That process was the start of what became the Nationals' signature - a lot of travel, getting out and talking to regional leaders and finding out what they wanted.

Having grown up on a pastoral station beyond Kalgoorlie and spent her life in rural and mining areas, Ms Duncan was familiar with the big distances in WA's outback and issues that such remoteness caused.

Nevertheless, the Nationals' wanderings led to the discovery that many in the regions had resigned themselves to rule from a distant city, losing hope that the will of either of the major parties could be bent.

"They were not fighting because they didn't think they could win," Ms Duncan said.

Ms Duncan and Mr Grylls travelled as a team, visiting the state's interior regularly over a period of more than two years to develop their key policy.

"The message was about this fabulous boom and people were living in containers," she said. "That is where Royalties for Regions was born."

A great admirer of Nelson Mandela, Ms Duncan had a seat at the negotiating table when it came to forming government and is insistent that it could have gone either way, with the ultimate viewpoint being that to go with Labor would have handed upper house control to the Greens.

Ms Duncan openly admits the Nationals' strategy is to consolidate its position in the north of the state, speaking of social issues that previous Wheatbelt-focused Nationals would never have dreamed of.

"They call us agrarian socialists," she said.

"I don't see that as an insult. This current crisis has shown us unfettered capitalism doesn't work."