Opinion: Labor on ropes as One Nation goes viral

One Nation’s support in one of two crucial by-elections could put the party on track to hold the balance of power in an LNP state government, writes Des Houghton.

IT SEEMS Pauline Hanson is becoming harder to contain that the coronavirus.

Recent polls have put Pauline Hanson’s One Nation candidate slightly ahead of Labor in the lead-up to the March 28 Bundamba by-election.

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If Hanson’s candidate is successful, One Nation will be on track to make more gains, and perhaps hold the balance of power in an LNP government after the October state election.

In Bundamba, 724 voters were asked in two phone polls to say whether they preferred the Labor, One Nation or “other” candidates.

One Nation got 262 votes while Labor got 256. There were 206 “others”, presumably LNP, Green or undecided voters.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson (right) with the party’s Bundamba candidate Sharon Bell

The polling was conducted by One Nation using American software that could not be tampered with, said One Nation Queensland party chief James Ashby.

He believed support for Labor in Bundamba had slumped after the resignation of Jo-Ann Miller, who had been ostracised by her Labor colleagues.

“There is a real possibility One Nation can claim Bundamba for the first time,” he told me.

“It’s very close to the Ipswich seat that Pauline once held.

“It’s a workers’ town that has been left behind by Labor.’’

Hanson was a member of the Ipswich City Council before leapfrogging into Federal Parliament with an upset win in the seat of Oxley in 1996.

Ashby said One Nation candidate Sharon Bell had lived in the electorate for 20 years, while Labor’s Lance McCallum had only arrived in Queensland last year from Melbourne.

McCallum won the nomination with Electrical Trades Union support, in a bitter internal Labor battle against the CFMEU’s preferred candidate Nick Thompson.

McCallum moved from Melbourne last year after being appointed to the $200,000-a-year role as inaugural executive director of the State Labor Government’s “Just Transition Group”.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson (second from left) meets Bundamba constituents with her party’s candidate Sharon Bell.

Miller said she was bullied out of the party.

Ashby said One Nation was the only party talking about the impost of foreign workers “flooding” into the country.

He said a lot of factory workers who lived in Bundamba had seen the uptake of foreign workers. This had contributed to the electorate’s high unemployment rate, he said.

“And there is an extraordinarily high underemployment rate,” he said.

“So why the hell do we have foreign workers when our daughters and sons are looking for more work?

“Labor is no longer the party of the worker. One Nation has become the true representative party of the working class today.”

Ashby denied the party’s stance was racist.

“Criticism isn’t racism,” he said.

“I can’t blame these people for wanting to come and work in Australia for higher wages than in their home countries.’’

One Nation did not run against Miller at the 2017 state election.

But it polled relatively strongly at federal booths in her electorate at last May’s federal electorate, recording primary votes of between 13 per cent and 21 per cent.

Originally published as Opinion: Labor on ropes as One Nation goes viral