Pauline Hanson refuses to direct preferences to Coalition

Pauline Hanson is refusing to repay Coalition moves to preference One Nation in key battleground seats, putting minor conservative parties ahead of Liberal and National MPs and candidates.

One Nation’s lead Senate candidate and daughter Lee Hanson with party leader and mother Pauline Hanson on the campaign trail in Tasmania. Picture: Facebook

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

Pauline Hanson is refusing to repay Coalition moves to preference One Nation in key battleground seats, putting minor conservative parties ahead of Liberal and National MPs and candidates on how-to-vote cards.

The Coalition has directed its voters to preference One Nation second in a number of must-win seats it hopes to wrestle off Labor across Australia.

In Peter Dutton’s home state of Queensland, the Coalition has put One Nation second in 18 of the state’s 30 seats.

The move marks the biggest departure of the Coalition’s ­decades-long reticence to preference Senator Hanson’s party after John Howard issued an edict in 2001 edict that One ­Nation should be “placed last on every Liberal Party how-to-vote card around Australia”.

Senator Hanson said the ­Coalition move was recognition that it “can work with One ­Nation on legislation and policy”.

But she said she would still be putting Liberal and Nationals MPs and candidates behind other conservative minor parties on how-to-vote cards for the House of Representatives and sixth in the Senate.

“We have a proven track record that they can work with us; this idea of an extreme right party, that excuse, that’s a thing of the past,” Senator Hanson said.

“Normally, we would leave the Coalition off how-to-vote cards in the Senate, but we are putting them at six because we didn’t want our votes to exhaust.

“If the Coalition can’t win the House of Representatives, there needs to be a change in the Senate. We can’t let Labor have control of both houses with the aid of the Greens. In the lower house, we will put them (Coalition) below the conservative minor parties but ahead of Labor and the teals.’’

A “very pleased” Senator Hanson told Sky News on Sunday night that Mr Dutton would have to come up with “some strong policies” in the final weeks of his election campaign to win over “disengaged” voters.

“People want to see strong leadership and decisive policies,” Senator Hanson said.

“A lot of people are still disengaged with the election. They’re really not interested.”

The Coalition has put One Nat­ion second on its how-to-vote cards in key Labor-held seats it is targeting, including Hunter, Robertson and Paterson in NSW, Blair in Queensland and Solomon in the Northern Territory.

It has put One Nation in the second spot in the upper house in Queensland and NSW.

“The Coalition realises they need to work with (One Nation). We are the only conservative party that’s prepared to keep the Coalition on track so they don’t go too far to the left,” Senator Hanson said.

“It only makes common sense that they would actually support us.”

A senior Coalition strategist said preferencing One Nation was a “necessity” in states like Queensland and NSW, particularly in outer suburban seats and the regions.

“The reluctance isn’t there any more. They have been around a long time and have legitimacy,’’ they said.

“And obviously we get back preferences from One Nation voters, which can prove decisive.’’

In 2019 – months before he won the May federal election – then prime minister Scott Morrison ordered the Liberal Party organisation to put “One Nation below the Labor Party” on how-to-vote cards, in the wake of One Nation figure James Ashby being secretly filmed seeking funding from the National Rifle Association in the US.

In a further nine Queensland seats – including Peter Dutton’s ultra-marginal electorate of Dickson – the LNP has One Nation third on its how-to-vote cards, in most cases behind Family First.

Seats in which the LNP has put One Nation second include Capricornia, Dawson, Flynn, Groom, Hinkler, Kennedy, Leichhardt, Maranoa, Wide Bay and Wright in regional Queensland, as well as Blair, which takes in Ipswich, Fadden on the Gold Coast, Fisher on the Sunshine Coast, Forde and Rankin in Logan, and Petrie, Longman and Lilley in greater Brisbane.

In only three Queensland seats has the LNP not put One Nation as its second or third preference: the Townsville seat of Herbert, held by the LNP’s Phillip Thompson and the Greens-held seats of Brisbane and Ryan.

In 2017, during the Queensland election campaign, then immigration and border protection minister Peter Dutton said while the Coalition government had a “constructive” relationship in the Senate with One Nation, Pauline Hanson had not delivered on what she had promised.

“As I say, people like One Nat­ion because they see Pauline Hanson and she says things that people want to hear, she doesn’t deliver on it, but she says things that people want to hear and if that works for her, good luck to her,” Mr Dutton said.

“But at some stage, as we found out in 1998, that comes to an end.

“There was a crash landing of One Nation in 1998. There’ll be a crash landing again of One ­Nation.”

-with Zoe De Koning