The sell-out of their constituents in the bush has disqualified the Nationals from any claim to represent rural and regional Australia, according to Independent Member for Calare Peter Andren.

"The pathetic overnight deal stitched up to save face for new leader Mark Vaile's is the ultimate, but not unexpected, betrayal of the wishes of the overwhelming number of rural constituents," Mr Andren said.

"Mark my words. Today is the beginning of the end of the Nationals and no amount of spin will get them out of this bulldust.

"The decision under duress by Barnaby Joyce to meekly surrender to the pressure of the Liberals in tweeds in his own party is completely at odds with the public sentiment.

"The Nationals are about to hand Telstra over to the top end of town for the price of a vague $1 billion spend and $100 million a year, when Telstra can't keep up with infrastructure upgrades while spending around $200 million a year now.

"The Nationals will betray those tens of thousands of rural people who have no way of accessing state-of-the-art landline and internet services unless at least $20 billion and possibly $30 billion is spent on the network according to Telstra's own figures.

"Australia has the most thinly distributed population in areas outside major capitals of any developed country and a competitive market model just won't work across most of the continent.

"Countries like France (France Telecom) and Germany (Deutsche Telecom) still hold onto between 42 and 51% public shareholding of their major telcos, so it's a nonsense for Mark Vaile and Peter Costello to argue that public ownership and government regulation of telecommunications are mutually exclusive.

"Of all countries Australia is the most vulnerable to throwing telecommunications on the open market where the privatised companies will inevitably cherry-pick the profitable parts and leave the rest with what they can beg from the government of the day.

"As surely as night follows day user-pay and timed local calls will become the order of the day for rural customers.

"Both the Liberals and Nationals' no longer have a legitimate claim to the loyalty and vote of rural Australians, and I will be encouraging as many high-profile independents as possible to take up the challenge over the next two years and mount local campaigns to win more rural seats," Mr Andren said.

"Rural Australians are supporting more and more independents at a state level and I predict that trend will spill over in a big way to the national scene at the next election," he added.