‘One Nation is the story’: Hanson throws up election wildcard

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation says a move to prop up Coalition candidates in key seats is designed to stop Anthony Albanese retaining power, as rising support for the right-wing party gives the Coalition hope of upset wins in Labor heartland seats on the minor party’s preferences.

Hanson placed the Coalition second on how-to-vote cards in about a dozen seats, including Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s, after the Coalition preferenced One Nation in 57 seats in a departure from previous attempts to lock out the minor party.

Senator Pauline Hanson is feeling hopeful at this election.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Hanson said the movement toward One Nation, being picked up in published and major party polling, showed its messages were resonating with voters as her chief of staff, James Ashby, said there had been no quid-pro-quo with Dutton.

“People are saying, ‘You’ve been warning us for years’,” Hanson said, as her party’s primary vote rises in polls from the less than 5 per cent it recorded at the 2022 election. “On high migration, the tipping point for a lot of people was under the Albanese government.”

Immigration has been high under Labor, but that comes after a period when borders were closed during the pandemic, putting numbers broadly on the same track it was before the pandemic.

“Isn’t it funny now that leaders around the world, including John Howard, said multiculturalism hasn’t worked? I’m 30 years ahead of them,” Hanson said.

Then-prime minister Howard refused Hanson’s preferences in 1998 partly over the firebrand’s infamous statement that Australia risked being “swamped by Asians”.

But the Coalition has not rejected One Nation preferences this year. Ashby said the party had taken a “principled approach” to preference the Liberal Party above Labor and conservative minor parties that were not running seriously in particular seats.

“We opted to move the Liberals up into second position in some of those key seats that we feel could be the make or break of a Coalition government versus Labor,” Ashby said.

A spokesman for the Liberal Party said: “There are no preference deals with One Nation.”

One Nation’s move was designed to offset damage to the Coalition after Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots risked Coalition losses by placing incumbents, including sitting opposition MPs, last.

Resolve Strategic director Jim Reed, who conducts polling for this masthead, said an increased One Nation vote could assist the Coalition.

“But we also need to bear in mind many will have come from [the Coalition] in the first place, so it only counts in seats where the Coalition’s primary vote is holding up in its own right,” Reed said.

The Resolve Strategic Monitor shows the One Nation primary vote at 7 per cent, while other national media polling has the minor party’s vote as high as 10.5 per cent.

“The rise of One Nation is another contribution to the long-term trend away from the major parties as people vote for change,” Reed said.

The opposition leader, who has this week leant into a cultural debate on Welcome to Country ceremonies, ducked a question on dealing with One Nation on Tuesday, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went on the offensive.

“They are combining with One Nation … trying to do these preference deals,” Albanese said on Tuesday in Brisbane.

Hanson told this masthead she could win Senate spots in most states outside Queensland – where the party has its only two senators – as One Nation campaigns on ditching the net zero emissions target, ending Welcome to Country ceremonies and massively cutting immigration.

Senate analysis from political consultant at DPG advisory and former Australia Institute head Ben Oquist showed One Nation could end up with up to six senators, with potential wins in NSW, Western Australia, and South Australia.

“One Nation is the story,” he said, while cautioning the party has underperformed at elections despite polling well in the lead up.

“There is a Trump vote out there, and it’s not the middle of Australia, it’s at the edge, and they’re picking up the pro-Trump vote Dutton has struggled with.”

Benson Saulo, the Liberal candidate in the inner Melbourne seat of Macnamara, conceded feeling conflicted about Coalition preferences going to Hanson at a candidate forum last week.

“The reality is, the Liberal Party is a centre-right party, Pauline Hanson One Nation is a centre-right party as well, in the Australian landscape,” he said.

“There’s elements there that I, personally, feel challenged about, and I can openly say that.”

Approached for comment afterwards, Saulo said: “The Liberals have always come first at the three-candidate preferred count, which means our preferences have never been distributed.”

The One Nation spike, partly explained by meagre support for Palmer’s new party, is boosting Coalition hopes for Saturday’s poll.

JWS Research pollster John Scales said about 80 per cent of Hanson voters in outer suburban seats were planning to direct their second preference to Dutton, compared with 64 per cent who gave them to Scott Morrison last election.

Scales said if the Coalition vote was stable in these seats and the Greens vote – which also flowed at about 80 per cent to Labor – was slightly down, the overall right-wing bloc could take Coalition candidates above Labor.

Scales, who is conducting large seat-based polls for corporate clients, said this phenomenon partly explained why Coalition campaigners were more confident about suburban wins than seemed justified based on national polling.

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