The Fractured Mandate: How the Climate-Change Divide and Pro-Nuclear Agenda Undermined the Country Party's Social Licence as Guardians of Trade Liberalisation and Federalism

This paper analyses how the climate-change divide and emerging pro-nuclear agenda fractured the Country Party’s historic social licence to act as custodian of trade liberalisation and federal balance. It draws on the RSQS-6D framework to show how environmental polarisation eroded constitutional literacy and public trust in agrarian representation. The study concludes that restoring legitimacy requires a new constitutional compact linking decarbonisation with rural equity and federal sovereignty.