One Nation targets Coalition seats in major Victorian election push
One Nation plans to contest nearly every Victorian seat at next year's election after tripling its membership, threatening Coalition hopes in regional strongholds.
One Nation is shaping as a major disrupter to Coalition plans to win more regional seats at next year’s Victorian election with confirmation it will “run in as many seats as possible, if not all of them”.
Upper House member for Northern Victoria, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell is the sole representative of One Nation in the Victorian parliament, but the party will step up a recruiting campaign for candidates in the new year.
Buoyed by record-high opinion poll support, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson held a sold-out, $150-per head ticket Christmas gala event in Melbourne late last month, and more recently convinced former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce to dump the Nationals and join her party.
His defection was confirmed last week at an appearance at the Tamworth saleyards in his New England electorate.
Hours earlier, Ms Hanson addressed an anti-immigration rally where she told the crowd that “I wouldn’t move to Victoria” due to the state’s crime, debt and farmers fighting against transmission lines on their land.
“We have tripled our membership right across the country since the federal election in May,” Ms Hanson’s chief of staff James Ashby said.
“Pauline made it very clear at the dinner that we intend to run in as many seats as possible in Victoria, if not all of them.
“The swing is on.
“(Regional and rural) seats are the most obvious, which would not only pose a threat to the Nationals, but also the Liberal Party as well.
“They’ve been very weak in standing up to this government and people in the regions have had a gutful.
“In the new year it’s going to be game on.”
The Liberal Party has confirmed candidates for “must win” seats of Ripon and Benambra with former party staffer Andrew Kilmartin to take on Labor’s Martha Haylett and engineering manager Steve Martin handed the job of retaining the seat held by Bill Tilley since 2006.
The National Party is also expected to field candidates in Ripon and Benambra.
Ms Tyrrell became One Nation’s first member of the Victorian parliament in 2022 and totally understood the plight of farmers, according to Mr Ashby.
“She’s come up from a background where she has had to be up early every day and milked cows,” he said.
“We know dairy in this country is really suffering.”
In 2019, The One Nation leader unsuccessfully tried to introduce a floor price for dairy farmers, but failed to get Senate support.
“Here we are four or five years down the track and the pigeons have come home to roost because we’re seeing a deficit in milk, particularly in Queensland,” Mr Ashby said.
“We’re having to import more milk than we’re able to produce.”
Monash University political scientist Zareh Ghazarian said there was no doubt One Nation was “mobilising” in Victoria despite poor electoral showings previously.
“There is an uptick of support there and a growing sense of reinvigoration about One Nation,” he said.
“A part of that has to be the really strong presence and constant presence of Pauline Hanson in Australian politics in almost 30 years.
“But what would be playing on the minds of One Nation strategists is the really bad results One Nation has had in Victorian state elections.
“They will also be competing with the major parties for the talent, especially those well known local candidates in regional and rural areas.”
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