WA Election: Pauline Hanson questions if there are any ‘good Muslims’

WA Election: The Labor luminary has lent his support to the man who will make an “outstanding premier’’.

• Barnett prepares for defeat
• Postal vote surge
• Dastyari’s bizarre video
• Hanson’s TV interview
• Leaked Liberal polling

WA Election Latest Updates: With five days remaining before West Australians go to the polls, One Nation senator Pauline Hanson continues her campaign roadshow while leaked Liberal internal polling predicts the party’s dire position is far worse than published polls. Premier Colin Barnett has said he’ll go quietly to the backbench if the Liberals lose. Follow updates from the campaign trail.

5.18pm: Labor brings in big guns

Kim Beazley, left, is lending his support to WA Labor leader Mark McGowan.

The Labor Party has wheeled in former federal leader Kim Beazley to plead with supporters to chip in with donations to help make Mark McGowan premier on Saturday. Mr Beazley, who returned to live in Perth last year after serving as Australia’s Ambassador to the US for six years, said in an email to Labor supporters today that he had known Mr McGowan for 20 years and believed he would make an outstanding premier. “But he has a huge fight on his hands, and we know that the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation will do everything they can to stand in our way,” he said. “WA Labor needs your help to get across the line this weekend. Can you donate $10 now to help give Mark’s campaign the final push it needs over these final four days?”

4.38pm: Voters come out in droves

West Australians are voting early in droves, possibly a reaction to very long queues on polling day last July when changes to the senate ballot created bottlenecks on Federal election day.

So far 94,000 people have been to an early polling place to vote ahead of Saturday’s state election. Today has been the busiest day, with 11,000 people visiting early polling places by 1.30pm Perth time.

In addition there has also been a dramatic surge in the number of postal votes - as of 9am today, the WA electoral commission had received 160,513 postal vote applications - more than twice the 74,000 postal cotes cast in the 2013 state election.

When West Australians last went to the polls on July 2 last year - the Federal election - social media lit up with complaints about long delays. Across Perth, voters reported waiting 90 minutes to cast their ballot in the Federal election. At the time the Australian Electoral Commission partly attributed “unusually long waits” to the record number of candidates and changes to the ballot prompting people to take longer to cast their votes.

4.20pm: Barnett’s GST compromise

Colin Barnett is prepared to lower even further what he would accept as a minimum share of GST to ensure something gets done. Colin Barnett suggested he would agree to a 65 cent “floor” if that was the figure proposed by Malcolm Turnbull. It comes just three weeks after he said he would accept 70 cents in the dollar, up from a record low of 30 cents presently, reports AAP.

Mr Turnbull told the Liberal state conference in August a floor would be set below which no state or territory’s share of the tax could fall. “I accept Malcolm Turnbull’s argument that you need to do it when no one’s going to be directly worse off,” Mr Barnett told Sky News.

“If that’s the case, pick a lower figure — 65 cents rather than 75 cents in the dollar. We will reach that in my view and at least we would know where we’re going.” Otherwise, Mr Barnett said, Australia’s economic development would be held back. “If you don’t give the export state and big investment state a reasonable chance of success, then Western Australia will struggle.” WA’s share is forecast to hit 60 cents in 2019/20. The premier argues his state would not have a debt problem if it was treated the same as every other state, and would likely be boasting a $1 billion surplus.

3.55pm: ‘No Water Corp sale’

Colin Barnett has ruled out privatising the Water Corporation. “We will not in any way be contemplating any further privatisations such as the Water Corporation,” he said. “But the government is always buying and selling land and other assets, so we can’t be too strict about that.” He also called on Labor leader Mark McGowan to say whether he supported the sale of the Utah Point iron ore export berth at Port Hedland and clarify his position on the sale of betting agency TAB. “Mark McGowan said he would never sell the TAB,” Mr Barnett said. “Now, apparently, he doesn’t know.”

3.20pm: Barnett on Sky

West Australian premier Colin Barnett says the unpredictability of regional seats has been overlooked in analysis of Saturday’s election. Defending his party’s preference swap with One Nation on Sky News this afternoon, Mr Barnett said he believes any benefits of the deal will be felt in regional lower house seats. The deal directs Liberal preferences to One Nation in the WA Upper House where Pauline Hanson’s party hopes to seize the balance of power. In return, One Nation will direct preferences to the Liberals in the lower house. Some commentators have asserted the deal is a dud for the Liberals since One Nation does not have candidates in crucial lower house seats. But Mr Barnett said the deal was pragmatic. “If the benefits flow through to the (Liberal) party it will be in country seats and they haven’t had I suggest the attention they deserve,” he said. “Those seats will be highly volatile.”

3.15pm: Labor on Western Power

WA Labor leader Mark McGowan believes the Barnett government would privatise the state’s Water Corporation if it is re-elected and makes good on its promise to part-sell Western Power.

Labor has released a series of past statements by Mr Barnett opposing privatisation to emphasise that he broke his promises.“If Mr Barnett is elected he’ll sell off Western Power, he’ll sell off Fremantle Port and look out Water Corporation, that will be the next public utility on the chopping block,” he told reporters.

3.00pm: Barnett defends Hanson deal

WA Premier Colin Barnett says he still stands by the Liberal preference deal with One Nation despite Pauline Hanson questioning whether there are any “good Muslims” in Australia. Senator Hanson made the comment and also asserted Muslims were taking over Australian suburbs in an interview on the Nine Network’s A Current Affair.

Mr Barnett, who looks set for defeat at this weekend’s state election, said her comments could create divisiveness in the community, AAP reports. But he would not back away from the controversial preference deal, which he said was not an endorsement of the party’s candidates or policies. “There is no agreement or understanding that we will reach policy agreements on legislation or any other matter,” he told reporters today. “It is simply a preference arrangement for maximising the Liberal vote — there is no other commitment at all.”

.@ColinBarnett says 'in no way do I endorse the policies of One Nation or their candidates' #auspol MORE: https://t.co/lIWZzsvQQm pic.twitter.com/DtlvoIgJOy

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) March 7, 2017

2.45pm: Nahan on Roe 8

It’s been one of the most heated issues of the WA election campaign — and it shows no sign of abating before polling day. Liberal Treasurer Mike Nahan said today that Labor’s pledge to tear up contracts for the controversial $540 million Roe 8 road project in Perth will cost more than 220 workers their jobs overnight. He also claimed that a Labor government would be forced to pay up to $40 million for cancelling the contract, though payments to the contractor for not doing the work. He called on Mr McGowan to attend the Roe 8 site in Perth’s southern suburbs — also the scene of major environmental protests — and explain to workers why he will sack them.

“After just three months more than 220 workers have already been inducted and that number is set to swell to 500 in the near future,” Dr Nahan said. “The fact remains that while Mark McGowan has a glossy brochure saying he will create jobs, his only real announcement so far has been how he will cut jobs.

“His worrying intervention where he said he will tear up a legal and legally-awarded government contract would set a terrible precedent and destroy confidence in government contracting. In addition to stopping the much needed job-creating project, federal funding for the project will be lost to WA because it is not transferable to other projects — a point confirmed by the Federal Government but irresponsibly ignored by Mark McGowan.

“While he cites Victoria as a case to say the federal funds can be transferred, the fact is the money had already been handed to the state in that instance. That is not the case in WA.”

Work on Roe 8 started in December and is expected to be completed in early 2020.

But Labor opposes the project and wants to redirect federal and state funds earmarked for the road to its planned $2.5 billion Metronet heavy-rail network. Green groups are irate that the road will pass through the environmentally fragile Beeliar Wetland

2.30pm: Government costings tomorrow

The West Australian government will release its full election costings on Wednesday, while taking a swipe at Labor for not following suit. “Labor has refused to submit its costings to Treasury, indeed, it has attacked Treasury as politically biased,” Treasurer Mike Nahan told reporters today. He said the state Liberal National government costings, submitted to Treasury last week, will show the government is has “a credible pathway to surplus”.

2.20pm: Barnett prepares for defeat

West Australian Premier Colin Barnett says he’ll go quietly to the back bench if the Liberals lose the state election this weekend. Internal party polling predicts a swing against the Liberals of about 14 per cent, which would mean Labor secures an extra 20 seats — more than enough to claim victory. “I’m still planning on winning this election or giving it my best shot,” Mr Barnett told reporters today. “I’m not about to concede because I think there is going to be unpredicted results, particularly in country electorates, and particularly maybe in some outer metropolitan ones where you’ve got some very strong candidates. So who knows what the final result will be, but if Mark McGowan and Labor do win, I’ll go quietly to the backbench.”

2.00pm: Postal vote surge

There has been a dramatic surge in the number of West Australian using postal votes in the lead-up to Saturday’s election. As of 9am today, the WA Electoral Commission had received 160,513 postal vote applications — more than twice the 74,000 postal votes case in total at the 2013 election. “Clearly this is an election of records across a number of fronts, but the growth in postal votes is very dramatic,” said WAEC Commissioner David Kerslake. Most of the 59 lower-house electorates have recorded more than 2,000 postal votes, but the highest so far is in the Liberal-held seat of Swan Hills with more than 3600. Applications for a postal vote close tomorrow.

Rosie Lewis 1.00pm: PM slaps down Hanson

Malcolm Turnbull has rebuked Pauline Hanson as he launched a fierce defence of Australia’s Muslim population, declaring the “vast majority” are patriotic, hardworking and committed to peaceful and law-abiding lives. The Prime Minister also said Muslims were “our best allies” in the fight against terrorism after the One Nation leader made contentious comments on A Current Affair, saying it would be difficult to spot a “good one” in Australia.

“I reject those sentiments entirely,” Mr Turnbull said after meeting with Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Jakarta. “The vast majority of Muslims in Australia are utterly appalled by extremism, by violent extremism, by terrorism. We have to remember that the vast majority of the victims of ISIL or Daesh are Muslims.

“The vast majority of Australian Muslims are patriotic, hardworking, seeking to get ahead, committed to peacefully living in Australia and abiding by our laws … In the war against terror, and it a is war that we are waging in the Middle East and around the world … our best allies, our most important allies are Muslim leaders like Joko Widodo, the millions and billions of Muslims who are thoroughly committed to peace.” Read the full story here.

Rachel Baxendale 11.40am: Australia would ‘go down toilet’

Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has not ruled out a preference deal with One Nation, despite warning Australia would “go down the toilet” if Pauline Hanson’s party was running the country. Speaking at the annual Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics outlook conference in Canberra, Mr Joyce said Australians should ask themselves whether they wanted “the myriad of people who make a whole range of noises, especially in the Senate” to be their treasurer, defence minister or agriculture minister.

“If you come to the conclusion that although it might be entertaining, although it somehow livens up the otherwise dour environment that you can see in the political class, then you’ve got to also ask yourself, where do you think the nation will go if those individuals, and I’m not going to name them, are actually going to run the country,” he said. “Because I can tell you where it’s going, I can tell you as an accountant, as a farmer, I’ll tell you exactly where it’s going to go, and it’s going to go down the toilet.” Read the full story here.

11.00am: Dastyari takes on One Nation

Labor Senator Sam Dastayari has marked Senator Pauline Hanson’s West Australian election blitz with a video mocking some of her candidate choices for the state election on Saturday.

In the three-minute clip, Senator Dastayari asks which of her candidates is the “odd one out” without the Australian values Senator Hanson stands for. He points to the pastor who advertised for bikini baristas, the former South African who advocated a separate state for blacks and the candidate for Pilbara David Archibald, with whom Senator Hanson will campaign today, who said single mothers were not attractive enough to keep a mate. The Labor senator’s video has been viewed 120,000 times and shared around 4200 times on Facebook since he posted it shortly before 11pm last night.

My take on One Nation candidates concerned not only with halal in the streets, but haram between the sheets... pic.twitter.com/t6qUfLXIGM

— Sam Dastyari (@samdastyari) March 6, 2017

10.00am: Leaked Liberal polling

Leaked Liberal Party internal polling suggests the Barnett government is in a “far worse” position compared with published polls, pointing to massive Coalition loss on Saturday.

Fairfax reports the internal polling conducted for the WA Liberal Party shows the government facing a two-party preferred vote of 57-43 which would result in the Liberal-Nationals Coalition haemorrhaging as many as 20 seats.

It is the same internal polling first reported in The Australian on February 15 showing a statewide swing against the Barnett government of about 14 per cent.

The leaked polling explains the West Australian Liberals’ desperation to do a preference deal with a ­resurgent One Nation ahead of the March 11 election.

This is worse for the Liberals than a Newspoll survey published in The Australian last month which showed Labor leading by 54 to 46 per cent.

The leaked polling is also far worse than Fairfax Media’s ReachTel poll results published last week which had the LNP trailing Mark McGowan’s Labor Party 48-52.

A Galaxy poll published on the weekend in The Sunday Times had the government in a worse position of 46-54.

9.30am: ‘Who’s the good one’

Pauline Hanson has questioned whether there were any “good Muslims” living in Australia in an extraordinary television interview during which the One Nation leader accused Muslims of taking over Australia’s suburbs.

Appearing on the Nine Network’s A Current Affair, Ms Hanson said she was speaking for ordinary Australians when she said that the country was being overrun by Muslims.

“I hear Australians that have lived just nice, quiet lives in their suburbs and then they’ve had Muslims come in there who have changed their suburbs,” Ms Hanson told host Tracey Grimshaw.

“They’ve built these mosques and they have their cars parked across the driveway or they have rubbish thrown over their fences.

“Or they go and knock on their door because they won’t move out and threaten them. ‘Listen mate, you better take this suitcase full of cash and get out of here.’ It’s having an impact on our educational system and, you know, in our schools and our swimming baths. [It’s] their attitude.’’

Ms Hanson, who is campaigning this week in Western Australia ahead of Saturday’s election, repeated her demand for the burqa to be banned saying it had no place in Australian society.

“The burqa should absolutely go. This is Australia,’’ she said.

“The full face covering I think is wrong. If they want to live that way and have their sharia law, then I suggest they go to a Muslim country.”

Asked by Grimshaw if she believed there were any “good Muslims” living in Australia, Ms Hanson suggested they were difficult to spot. “I believe there are some that want to live a good life and a quiet life,” she said. “But you tell me — you line up a number of Muslims, who’s the good one?”

NOW: Tracy Grimshaw’s exclusive interview with Pauline Hanson and her explosive views on Muslims. #9ACA
FULL STORY: https://t.co/tpT9xd9YmY pic.twitter.com/eum6IPbx9p

— A Current Affair (@ACurrentAffair9) March 6, 2017