Pauline Hanson rails against VROs while welcoming One Nation’s newest WA candidate

Pauline Hanson is pinning her hopes of a One Nation comeback in West Australian politics on an upper house candidate dumped by the Labor Party over breaches of a family violence restraining order.

Hanson railed against VROs in a testy press conference at Parliament House in Perth on Thursday as she announced independent upper house MP Ben Dawkins had joined her party and would contest the 2025 WA election for One Nation.

Former Labor MLC Ben Dawkins has joined One Nation.

The 52-year-old lawyer was in fifth spot on Labor’s South West region ticket at the 2021 election and secured his seat in the upper house after the retirement of Alannah MacTiernan, but was dumped by the party after his VRO breaches were made public.

In June, he was fined $2000 and handed a 10-month community order after he pleaded guilty to 35 charges of breaching a VRO, which related to multiple emails he sent to his former partner over several months, in which he described her as a “psycho mother” and “disturbed”.

Hanson said she was aware of Dawkins’ convictions and was proud and happy to have him as a member of the party she founded in 1997.

She then launched into a tirade about VROs being used in cases where there was no violence.

“I’m sick and tired of people thinking just because you have a domestic violence order against you that it’s gotta be abuse or physical violence, which it’s not,” she said.

“Anyone can get a domestic violence order against him because they say they’re in fear. Well, that has to change.

“There’s a difference between physical violence and there is a difference between sending text messages or emails and trying to state your case. So I think it’s been blown completely out of proportion.”

Relationships Australia describes family and domestic violence as covering a range of behaviours including physical abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, economic abuse, intimidation, coercion and isolation.

During Dawkins’ case, a police prosecutor told the court his offending met all the criteria of being a “spousal abuser” despite not involving violence or threats.

“It’s constant, it’s continuous, it’s abusive, it’s picking away at the victim,” the prosecutor said.

Focus on vaccine mandates

One Nation has applied to the WA Electoral Commission to reregister as a political party in the state, which the commission is currently assessing.

Despite his Labor background, Dawkins said his political values matched One Nation’s, and he would focus on fighting for people sacked over COVID-19 vaccine mandates, the state government’s new firearms reforms, and stopping the live export ban.

“Senator Hanson has been very clear that I must continue to speak truthfully, and hold the government to account and fight for the constituents,” he said.

Hanson cited other party defections like former Liberal MP Craig Kelly and former Sydney Labor MP Tania Mihailuk to One Nation as politicians who had “seen the light”.

“They can actually stand by their own views. They can represent themselves, they can see truth and honesty in One Nation that we are really out there wanting to represent the people of this country,” she said.

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