Hanson gives LNP a leg-up in vital seats

Pauline Hanson ditches her 2016 strategy of largely preferencing against sitting MPs.

Pauline Hanson at Adelaide airport yesterday. Picture: Tom Huntley

Pauline Hanson is abandoning One Nation’s 2016 federal election strategy of preferencing against sitting MPs in a move that could boost Coalition stocks in the crucial battleground of Queensland.

Joining the campaign after ­recovering from surgery to remove her appendix, Senator Hanson said preferences would be allocated on a “seat-by-seat’’ basis in a ­departure from One Nation’s how-to-vote cards that cost the Liberal National Party at least two key seats at the last election.

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In an exclusive interview with The Australian, the One Nation leader blamed the rise of competing right-wing minor parties and “a lot confusion” among voters that had led to a fall in support in recent polls.

Senator Hanson dismissed suggestions the Al-Jazeera investi­gation — linking her advisers to donation discussions with the ­National Rifle Association in the US — or support for Coalition legislation had hurt the party.

The latest Newspoll shows support for One Nation has fallen two points to 4 per cent of the national vote, in line with a downward trend over recent months for the party that secured four Senate seats at the 2016 election.

Senator Hanson said the party’s performance at the 2016 election and in subsequent state elections — picking up a seat in Queensland, four upper house seats in Western Australia and possibly two in NSW — showed polling day was the “real gauge’’.

“So what we have achieved has been tremendous compared to the other political parties — they have not gained the traction with the public, and what the public want,” she said. “People are terribly confused but they also fed up with the major political parties.

“There is a lot of competition around for the votes and the minor parties trying to get those votes.’’

Senator Hanson said Scott Morrison had been “a fool’’ to ­announce that the Liberals would put Labor ahead of One Nation, after the airing of the Al-Jazeera investigation.

On published polling, One Nat­ion, Katter’s Australian Party and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party are unlikely to win lower house seats, but their preferences could be decisive in tight contests between the major parties, particularly in Queensland.

Senator Hanson said she suspected John Howard had “counselled” the Prime Minister to adopt the strategy in a bid to ­destroy One Nation, adding that the former prime minister “needs to go … and have a full-time ­retirement’’.

“John Howard is encouraging Morrison to put One Nation last without really thinking that 67 per cent of our preferences flow into the conservative side,’’ Senator Hanson said. “They can’t afford to do that in an election that is going to be so tight that they need every seat they can get.’’

Senator Hanson conceded that One Nation’s decision in 2016 to preference most sitting MPs next to last to the Greens helped Labor take the Townsville-based seat of Herbert and outer-metropolitan seat of Longman from LNP MPs.

Asked whether she intended to repeat the near-blanket strategy to preference against sitting members in Queensland — where the LNP holds 21 of 30 seats, with eight on margins of 4 per cent or less — Senator Hanson said: “I am looking at it on a seat-by-seat basis.

“There is a whole mixed bag that I’m actually looking at,” she said, adding that an announcement would be made in coming weeks.

“I am not here to shore up the Labor Party, I am not here to shore up the Coalition.

“My decision will be based on what is right for the people and country and ensuring One Nation is not going to get destroyed ­because they are determined to get rid of us.’’

Senator Hanson confirmed that One Nation would exchange preferences with KAP.