The bustling NSW Riverina town of Griffith should be rock solid Nationals’ territory. It’s an agricultural titan surrounded by vast irrigated cotton fields and almond plantations. A quarter of the nation’s wine is harvested and bottled here. The chicken you slide into your oven tonight is likely to have been raised in one of many hundreds of poultry sheds plonked on farms throughout the district. As a marker of its agricultural might, this town of 27,000 boasts three forklift dealerships, needed to load the enormous tonnages from the paddocks.
And what should be the cherry on top for the Nats – the party spawned from the old Country Party – is that its leader, Matt Canavan, is of Italian stock. The mallee scrub that once surrounded Griffith was cleared and tilled and turned into orchards and vineyards by hardworking Italian migrants, just like his nonna and nonno. As Canavan wanders down the main drag, Banna Avenue, old men with thick accents shake his hand and chew his ear. “I love this place,” says Canavan. “I feel at home.”
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