Former Adani exec revealed as One Nation senate candidate

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has introduced her number two Queensland senate candidate - an Indian-born, former Adani mining executive.

Pauline Hanson spent much of her Wednesday morning press conference railing against migrants and multinational resource companies before introducing an Indian-born former Adani mining executive as her number two Queensland senate candidate.

The One Nation figurehead - who has also secured LNP defector George Christensen for an unlikely Senate tilt - announced on Wednesday she would have a candidate in all 151 lower house seats at the May 21 poll.

She also rolled out a number of familiar talking points, including a broadside against the forecast increase in Australia’s migrant intake to 235,000 by 2025.

Shortly after introducing Muthuraj ‘Raj’ Guruswamy as number two on the Queensland senate ticket, she declared opening the country to more migrants a year would be a slap in the face to people who have lost their jobs because of jab mandates.

Hanson has long held an anti-immigration stance, telling parliament in her maiden speech in 1996 that the nation was in danger of being “swamped by Asians.”

Pauline Hanson made a surprise move during a press conference on Wednesday. Photo: Steve Pohlner

George Christensen is jumping aboard the One Nation train. Photo: Steve Pohlner

On Wednesday she said lifting the migrant while shunning antivaxxers intake was akin to “throwing good Australians on the scrapheap”.

The Senator also threw her support behind Queensland’s coal industry and the construction of new coal-fired power plants “so that we can bring more money into the country” while bemoaning the fact that Qatar was making more money of is gas fields than Australia was.

“We are a resource rich country, yet we fail to actually impact on that ... when we are the largest exporter of LNG gas,” she said.

“Other countries around the world, like Norway, have made a lot of money out of their resources and we’re just giving it way to multinationals.”

Raj Guruswamy is a well-connected businessman born in India. Photo: Steve Pohlner

Guruswamy, a well-connected mechanical engineer who was born in India, is currently the Asian-Pacific managing director of neurohaptic technology firm Biowin.

But in the five years to October 2018 the naturalised Australian was Adani Mining’s general manager of corporate affairs.

Adani, of course, is the Indian-owned company behind the controversial Carmichael Coal mine that has recently been completed in Central Queensland.

The mine is set to produce 10 million tonnes of coal each year that will be sold to customers across the Asia-Pacific region.

“I think this is a great opportunity that is provided by Pauline to see what I can do to assist in Australia getting back to its glory days in terms of manufacturing, getting into the resource sector,” he said on Wednesday.

Originally published as Former Adani exec revealed as One Nation senate candidate