Federal election 2022: Liberals’ backing for Jacqui Lambie sparks preference war with One Nation’s Pauline Hanson
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation will target Liberal moderate MPs in key seats across the country.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation will target Liberal moderate MPs in key seats across the country and push its supporters to preference Labor over several of Scott Morrison’s most vulnerable candidates.
Senator Hanson on Wednesday accused the Liberals of a “dirty deal with the devil” by deciding to recommend its voters give their preferences to the Jacqui Lambie Network ahead of One Nation in the Tasmanian Senate race.
The One Nation leader told The Australian her party would look to punish the Liberals via low placings on how-to-vote cards in selected marginal seats from Victoria to Queensland.
Bass MP Bridget Archer – who holds the Morrison government’s most marginal seat – and long-time Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch, who is facing a heavy push against him from the ALP, are understood to be at the top of a list of moderate Liberals Senator Hanson will now target.
“We’re not letting them get away with this dirty deal with the devil,” Senator Hanson said.
“One Nation will now look at Liberal-held seats across the country.”
While One Nation will act against Liberal moderates by putting Labor above them in how to vote cards, it still plans to support Liberal conservatives and Nationals over ALP candidates.
The preferences of Senator Hanson’s supporters could be significant in deciding the results in a number of electorates on May 21, with One Nation polling at 3 per cent in the latest Newspoll.
One Nation is also set to preference Labor over Liberal moderate MPs facing Climate 200 backed candidates such as Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney and Tim Wilson in Goldstein.
Senator Hanson’s comments came as preference dealing started across the country, with Labor deciding to give former Wallabies captain David Pocock the second spot on its Senate how-to-vote cards in Canberra.
The ALP preference deal will boost Pocock – whose upper house bid is also being supported by Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 organisation - in his attempt to dislodge Pacific Minister Zed Seselja from the Senate.
One Nation had been confident its candidate, Steve Mav, would win Tasmania’s sixth Senate seat, and had offered to preference the Liberals in key marginals Bass and Braddon in return for Senate preferencing.
However, sources said the Liberals had decided to preference the United Australia Party, the Liberal Democrats and the JLN’s Tammy Tyrrell ahead of Mr Mav.
Senator Hanson described the decision as “shocking”, accusing the JLN of being “green-left”.
“Liberal voters will be despairing as their party lurches to the left on issue after issue in a -betrayal of their Australian values,” she said.
“The Liberals will do whatever it takes to save their marginal seats Braddon and Bass.
“Tasmanian voters won’t be fooled and will very likely kick the Liberals out anyway. The Liberals stand for nothing.
“Labor is rotten to the core but the Liberals are just as bad because they only pretend to fight for conservative Australian values.
“Their hypocritical deal with JLN is the last nail in the Morrison government’s coffin.”
Sources said there was no preference deal between the Liberals and JLN, but confirmed that the Liberals had decided to preference JLN ahead of One Nation.
Senator Lambie rejected claims the Jacqui Lambie Network has struck a “dirty deal” with the Liberals to win an extra seat in the Senate at the next election.
“There has been no deal done,” Senator Lambie told Sky News on Thursday. “The Jacqui Lambie Network has done no deals, unless they’ve done them in the past five hours since I went to bed… which I doubt.”
Ms Lambie said she doesn’t know why Senator Hanson is “getting all hot under the collar” over a “two horse race” between JLN candidate Tammy Tyrrell and Liberal Senator Eric Abetz. But, she said, she is focused on Tasmania.
“I’ll let Pauline run her own race, I’ll let the people decide on voting day who they want to vote for,” Ms Lambie said. “We (Tasmanians) don’t like mainlanders coming down here and telling us where we’re going to vote or what we’re going to do so, once again, I will worry about what’s going on in Tasmania.”
“We want that extra senator in there to represent Tasmania. That’s what we are focused on.”
Additonal reporting: Georgina Noack
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