The man shown here is Llewellyn Atkinson. He was the Country Party member for Wilmot (Tas) from 1921 until 1928.
He’s been dead since 1945 and now not even Nationals leader Michael McCormack knows that he was the last Country Party member from Tasmania.
Llewellyn Atkinson; Photo credit: Psephos
Yesterday, Tasmanian Senator Steve Martin joined The Nationals. Elected in a recount of Jacqui Lambie Network votes a few months back, Martin briefly sat as an independent before signing up to the former Country Party.
Martin was welcomed into the party room yesterday as the first-ever Country Party/Nationals senator from Tasmania.
According to an ABC report, McCormack told the media: “The last National Party member in parliament (from Tasmania) was William McWilliams, a former Country Party leader all the way back in 1927.”
Umm, no. McWilliams left the Country Party in 1922 and only returned to Parliament in 1928 as an independent.
The misinformation was dutifully repeated by Guardian Australia and The Australian.
The Land also repeated the fake history and then made it worse by suggesting that McWilliams had been the Country Party’s “inaugural leader in 1903”, at least fifteen years before the party was formed.
In a variation on the theme, The Conversation told us there had been no Country Party representation in Tasmania “since the early 1920s, when William McWilliams was briefly leader of the Country Party”.
Again, no. There were two lower house Country Party members – in Braddon and Wilmot – between 1921 and 1928.