Longman poll weighed on Pauline Hanson’s tax decision

Pauline Hanson’s support of the Turnbull government’s income tax cuts was made with an eye on the Longman by-election.

Longman voters Kylee and Ashley Cushing with their children, from left, Madison, 10, Elijah, 4, and Lincoln, 8. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Pauline Hanson’s announcement that One Nation will support the Turnbull government’s income tax cuts was made with more than an eye on the hotly contested by-election in Longman, north of Brisbane, next month.

Any move by Senator Hanson and her West Australian ­colleague Peter Georgiou to block tax relief for low and middle-income workers would have hurt the party’s chances in the July 28 contest.

Longman voter Kylee Cushing, whose family runs a pest-­control business, said she was undecided about whether to support One Nation, the Coalition or Labor, but the income tax debate would probably be a factor in her choice.

“I think it’s a good thing,” Ms Cushing said yesterday. “For us, as a small business, it’s better and it allows us more opportunity to take on more workers.”

Ms Cushing, who lives in Burpengary, east of Caboolture, said that she and her husband Ashley, 33, earned about $80,000 a year combined on which they had to support their three primary-school-aged children.

She aspires to build a business that will continue to grow and employ people in their community.

Over the plan’s seven years, a dual-income family with each worker earning $40,000 would together gain $5050 in tax relief. From 2022-23, each earner’s annual tax bill would be reduced by $540.

“We’ve only been in the business for three years, but every year we seem to be going a bit better,” she said.

The average worker in Longman’s largest town, Caboolture, earned $43,800 in 2015-16 and would take home an extra $404 each year if the Coalition’s plan clears the Senate.

The average Caboolture worker would not benefit directly from the second and third tranches of tax relief, which are targeted at workers earning more than $87,000, although the government argues the incentive would spur aspirational middle-income earners to work harder.

One Nation candidate Matthew Stephen said he would “support anything that puts money into the back pockets of battlers”, but did not know enough about the plan to support or oppose it.

Mr Stephen said voters had not raised One Nation’s internal discord with him on the campaign trail.

One Nation has not revealed how it will direct preferences at the by-election.