The ‘latte line’ dividing metropolitan and regional Australia has disappeared, but have the lobby groups kept pace?

Simson would rather Australia walk away from a ‘dud’ trade deal with the EU than sign something that could damage farmers for a generation. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

It has become a standard of bush politics, led largely by the National party, that city “latte sippers” don’t understand country people.

So it was noteworthy that in her valedictory speech at the National Press Club on Tuesday outgoing National Farmers Federation (NFF) president Fiona Simson declared that sort of rhetoric had had its day.