Queensland election: Trigger-appy saboteurs take aim at Pauline Hanson’s foes

If you’re a One Nation supporter, help is at hand to turn your vote into a guided missile — aimed where it will hurt the most, in the best Hanson style.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson shows off her party’s new preferencing app. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

If you’re a One Nation supporter, help is at hand to turn your vote into a guided missile — aimed where it will hurt the most, in the best Hanson style.

What’s claimed to be an Australia-first preferencing app is a digital open ticket designed to inflict grief on the major parties. All but three of the 93 state seats have preference guides to disadvantage either the ALP or Liberal National Party, depending on which one is lower in the voter’s estimation.

One Nation, of course, is top of the ticket. Punch in your address or electorate and the app invites you to click on the red tab for Labor or blue for the LNP. The numbered order of candidates not only ensures the selected party is last, but blocks avenues for it to benefit through preference swaps or before the secondary votes are exhausted.

“I acknowledge the app won’t suit every voter, but it’s about engaging with younger voters and ensuring we stay ahead of the curve,” Pauline Hanson said while launching the voting aid.

The seats that can’t be called up on the app are those of Traeger and Hill in north Queensland, held by Katter’s Australian Party stalwarts Rob Katter and Shane Knuth respectively, and central west Callide, where One Nation also approves of the LNP’s man, Colin Boyce. The Hanson party is not contesting these.

The open ticket is a departure from One Nation’s traditional approach to preference sitting MPs last, which penalised Labor in the regions in 2017 but doomed the LNP by swinging four crucial blue seats in Brisbane, delivering Annastacia Palaszczuk the numbers to govern in her own right.

Demonstrating the app, Senator Hanson’s chief adviser, James Ashby, said it was developed at a time when it was unclear whether COVID-19 restrictions would allow conventional how-to-vote cards to be handed out at polling stations.