A chronicle of chaos dogs Pauline Hanson’s WA election campaign

SHE came to conquer, but Pauline Hanson’s campaign shambles may have just blown it for One Nation — yet again.

ANALYSIS

AS West Australians vote on Saturday, keen attention will be on a woman who isn’t a candidate, knows little about local issues, and lives a continent away.

She is Pauline Hanson and her week-long campaign on the ground in Western Australia has demonstrated why she has stood for election 10 times since 1998 — six federal polls, two in NSW, two in Queensland — with just one victory.

It has been a chronicle of chaos.

The election has been billed as her next big step, with the prospect One Nation candidates will hold the balance of power in the state Upper House, and maybe — an outside chance — seats in the Lower House.

This would add to the influence exercised by Senate Hanson and three One Nation colleagues in the federal Upper House, where they can decide the fate of legislation.

But the Hanson presence on the ground has created such a shambles within her own party and her national profile, there are doubts she will do as well as she and her backers have foreshadowed.

Further, there are major issues for the state being debated this poll, and One Nation has been only a casual presence in that debate, relying more on the unpopularity of the major parties to gather support.

Pauline Hanson campaigns in Mandurah Forum shopping Centre, WA. Picture: Colin Murty

The eight-year-old Liberal government of Premier Colin Barnett is expected to lose after failing to manage the consequences of the evaporating mining boom.

State debt has grown from $3.6 billion to $33 billion over eight years and is zooming towards reaching $41 billion in the near term. This burden — and the $1 billion-a-year interest bill it attracts — has added to claims the government cannot manage the state budget.

The drying up of rivers of resources revenue has directly hurt ordinary West Australians as employers have laid off staff, and real estate values have slumped.

Leader of the Labor Opposition Mark McGowan is expected to become the new premier, and to inherit a complex and weighty stack of funding questions, not least being the campaign to get WA a larger scoop from the national GST pool.

Pauline Hanson’s response to that was to endorse moving GST cash from her home state of Queensland to Western Australia. That amounts to treachery in Queensland.

Senator Hanson denied saying it, except for the time she was recorded in an interview saying it. Since 1996 she has parlayed her capacity to play the victim into a sort-of political career. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has astutely held back from attacking Senator Hanson personally, but has condemned her positions on childhood vaccinations and law-abiding Islamic Australians.

In May last year, at the start of the election campaign, he said, “Pauline Hanson is not a welcome presence on the Australian political scene. Remember she was chucked out of the Liberal party.”

Mr Turnbull paid heavily for that personal attack as the Hanson victimhood ploy swung into action, gaining her greater support. It was a painful lesson for the Prime Minister: He had to deny her victimhood.

But it’s harder to be the martyr when the attacks are coming from your own party. On the GST matter, for example, One Nation’s West Australian leader Colin Tincknell told Sky News Senator Hanson would lobby for Queensland cash to go west: “As a senator that represents the Queensland state, Senator Hanson will not only talk to the leader of the party, whether it be (Premier) Palaszczuk or the new parliament, she’ll be prepared to talk to the federal government.”

Then there are the two former WA One Nation officers who claim they have been moved on because they were considered too old.

Senator Hanson has dismissed the claims of “ageism” from 87-year-old Ron McLean, former state president, and his 79-year-old wife Marye Louise Daniels, the former state secretary.

Ron McLean and Marye Louise Daniels are taking legal action against One Nation, claiming unfair dismissal. Picture: Colin Murty

Senator Hanson also has had to criticise herself, withdrawing a claim that tests could be used to find the effect of vaccination on children. They don’t exist.

“If that be the case, I am wrong, all right? I was of the opinion that I did read that was the case. Apparently it’s not,” she told the Seven network on Thursday.

Pauline Hanson has never won votes through her policy acumen. She has been elevated because she is seen as a vehicle for revenge against the major parties — Labor, Green, Liberals and Nationals.

Voters who feel alienated from social debate and sidelined from economic progress don’t believe she would fix much. By and large, they want her to take their grievances to Parliament, not her policies.

A former US diplomat, describing the populist support for President Donald Trump, recently said of voters: “They don’t care what you know. They just want to know you care.”

One Nation’s vote fell from 13 per cent to nine per cent last week in Western Australia. That might be an under-reading as some voters would have been too shy to admit they would go PHON. The One Nation support could be significantly higher.

However, nothing exposes a leader and a party more than the scrutiny given during an election campaign — and that attention has not been kind to Pauline Hanson.