Election 2025: Trumpet of Patriots blast over One Nation deal

Clive Palmer has stepped up his attack on Pauline Hanson, alleging the One Nation leader ‘doesn’t care about Australians’ and is running out-of-state candidates to access public funds for personal use.

Trumpet of Patriots chairman Clive Palmer. Picture: Getty Images

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Businessman Clive Palmer has stepped up his attack on Pauline Hanson, alleging the One Nation leader “doesn’t care about Australians” and is running out-of-state candidates to access public funds for personal use.

The accusations follow Senator Hanson’s rejection of a new election advertisement distributed by Mr Palmer’s party, the Trumpet of Patriots, which claimed One Nation was a front for the Coalition and “evil” after it placed the Liberal and National parties second on its how-to-vote cards.

In a statement to The Australian, Mr Palmer said One Nation was paid $3.38 for each vote it received, referring to the $12,379 that the Australian Electoral Commission reimbursed parties for candidates who receive at least 4 per cent of the primary votes in each seat.

The businessman alleged that the longstanding senator had resorted to running candidates living in states outside of the seat they were contesting to bolster the party’s numbers.

“The majority of funds goes to Hanson (sic) bank account,” Mr Palmer said. “She does not care about Australia. She cares about her bank account.”

One Nation is contesting 147 seats at this election and has put the Coalition second on its how-to-vote card in 139 of them, after Senator Hanson changed her position on preferences midway through the campaign. 

At the 2022 election the party received 4.96 per cent of first-preference votes, recording a swing of 1.88 per cent towards One Nation.

The Trumpet of Patriots is preferencing the sitting MP last in the nearly 100 seats in which it is running a candidate.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson with daughter Lee Hanson, the party’s Senate candidate for Tasmania. Picture: One Nation

In 2024 Mr Palmer approached Senator Hanson proposing the two parties combine under the same banner but was rebuffed by the One Nation leader.

The billionaire businessman also doubled down on his party’s claim that the rival minor right-wing party was a “Liberal Party front”. “One Nation is no nation; she (Senator Hanson) is evil,” Mr Palmer said.

Voters are not obligated to follow the preferencing order on a party’s how-to-vote cards.

Griffith University associate professor of politics and journalism Paul Williams said he believed the One Nation vote would increase but noted that its voters were unlikely to follow the party’s suggestions.

“They splay their preferences everywhere,” Dr Williams said.

“If Hanson directs preferences and tells its voters, ‘you must number One Nation first, the LNP second’, One Nation voters are very spirited, independently minded, suspicious of authority, and are just as likely to give the middle finger to Pauline and do what they want.”