Pauline Hanson’s One Nation plots major offensive at Queensland election

THE latest move from One Nation’s Pauline Hanson will send a chill through the major political parties in Queensland.

One Nation’s Pauline Hanson is adopting a take-no-prisoners approach to Queensland.

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POLITICAL gatecrasher Pauline Hanson will tomorrow unveil 36 One Nation candidates preselected help to topple the first-term Palaszczuk Government.

The first round of candidates allows the Hanson juggernaut to spread its political tentacles outside Canberra and capitalise on an anti-major political sentiment rising in the state.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls have been bracing for the onslaught, alive to Senator Hanson’s parliamentary success since the Federal election, including helping farmers and the Turnbull Government find a solution to the backpacker tax.

A Galaxy poll conducted for The Courier-Mail found One Nation was polling at 16 per cent in Queensland.

Senator Hanson’s heavy workload and willingness to travel in regional Queensland has enabled her to shore-up her popularity federally, but also tap into sentiments that will help her state election campaign, due on or before 2018.

“This is going to be the biggest test for One Nation since 1998,’’ she said.

“I’m not going to be the leader of the (state) party but I’ll have a big impact on them and guide them with my knowledge and expertise.

“I want people with a bit of mongrel in them.

“This will give regional Queenslanders a big because the national Party has let them down.’’

Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has ruled out any coalition with One Nation.

The Courier-Mail can reveal Senator Hanson and her team plan to run a campaign to win George Street, noting Labor has ruled out forming government with One Nation.

The candidates, blue-collar workers and white collar workers, will run in some of the most marginal seats in the state, including Lockyer, Mansfield, Albert and Pumicestone.

Internal Labor and LNP polling reveals One Nation is eating into their vote and is threatening to derail their two-party dominance in Queensland.

Former Liberal National MP Neil Symes, who lost his seat of Lytton to Labor’s Joan Pease in 2015, will run for One Nation in Mansfield against his former LNP colleague Ian Walker.

The first wave of candidates are spread throughout the state with about one-third of those preselected women.

It is understood Senator Hanson will run candidates in all 93 seats — including four new seats due to be drawn up by the Redistribution Commission — if they are “quality”.

Forty-seven seats are needed to form majority government.

One Nation will campaign heavily in the regions but believe there are seats in the state’s southeast corner they could win.

They will campaign on jobs, education and a massive infrastructure water policy, “similar to the Snowy Hydro scheme” that will create employment and food security.

LNP Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls is keeping his options open.

Campaign manager, One Nation treasurer and candidate for Lockyer Jim Savage said no seats would be taken for granted, but the party had heard what voters really wanted — and it wasn’t the “gobbledygook” they were getting from major parties.

Mr Savage is running in the seat Senator Hanson narrowly missed out on winning in 2015. She secured a 14.7 swing against the LNP’s Ian Rickuss.

Mr Savage said One Nation was attracting former Nationals, Liberal, Katter and Labor Party voters.

“I was a farmer ... a bushie and a Nationals man. I never left the Nationals, they left me,’’ Mr Savage told The Courier-Mail yesterday.

“The old Labor Party of 20 years ago has some of the same beliefs and values similar to One Nation.

“They are not what they used to be. Now they’re for big business and big unions.

“These people (those attracted to One Nation) haven’t changed their beliefs, it’s the party’s that have left them high and dry.”

He insisted the party had learnt from its collapse after initial electoral success at the 1998 election, in which it won 11 seats.

“We will not have a repeat of ’98, over my dead body.”

Labor won 44 seats at the 2015 election — before losing two to the cross bench — while the LNP, under former premier Campbell Newman, haemorrhaged 34 on election day.