In a way, you can understand the Liberal Party’s reluctance to come right out and announce a coalition arrangement with One Nation. It must be pretty galling, after all, to go from the party of the two longest-serving PMs to being a long-distant third-runner in the polls. The humiliation is entirely self-inflicted, though, and sooner or later, if the poll trajectory continues, the Libs are eventually going to have to face facts. If they want to have any hope of getting their arses on the government benches again, it’ll be by hanging onto One Nation’s coattails.
They’re slowly but surely getting there.
Acting Opposition Leader Jane Hume has guaranteed the Liberal Party will not look to join forces in coalition with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
“Never under my watch will there be a coalition between the Liberal Party and One Nation. We are not forming a coalition with One Nation. I can guarantee you of that,” Senator Hume told Nine’s Today.
Just like when John Howard declared that a GST was “dead, buried and cremated”?
Despite ruling out the possibility of a coalition with the right-wing minor party, Senator Hume left the door open to striking preference deals once their candidates had been revealed and their policies unveiled.
Plenty of their policies are already up on their website. This ‘no policies’ lie is wearing thinner than voters’ patience with the uniparty establishment. Sooner or later, Hume, and the rest of the Libs, are just going to have to come clean, however humiliating that might be.
Others in the Liberals are still trying to talk tough. Despite admitting that he hoped to get ON preferences, WA MP Andrew Hastie has vowed he would rather be “taken out in a box” than bend the knee to One Nation. That wish may well be granted, as the party opened a branch in Hastie’s seat of Canning.
Still, you can’t blame Hastie for being a bit grumpy, after Pauline Hanson’s Please Explain took the mickey out of him with their latest satirical cartoon.
To really rub it in, One Nation’s newly appointed Victorian leader is waxing confident that it’s the Libs who need them, more than vice-versa. And they’re not interested. In fact, Hanson agrees, it’s the Liberals who need to pull their heads in and get real.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has no interest in forming a coalition with Jess Wilson and the Victorian opposition but is open to exchanging preferences to topple the Labor government.
Calling on the Victorian Liberals to “get rid of their attitude”, Senator Hanson confirmed her party would put the Greens last and Labor second last on its how-to-vote cards in Victoria.
“They need to get rid of their attitude first. And if they are really concerned about the state, then they need to work with One Nation to get rid of this toxic Labor-Greens government,” she told 3AW.
“To have the sheer arrogance saying ‘we’re not going to form a coalition’, I don’t want a coalition with them either. It’s not about forming a coalition.”
Warren Pickering, the newly announced Victorian leader, was equally blunt: “We don’t intend to have to share government.”
Well, you can’t say he doesn’t have confidence. It’s a bold change from the received wisdom of the uniparty for the last couple of decades, of trying to portray themselves as having ‘underdog’ status, however unconvincing. Whether Pickering’s bravado bears fruit remains to be seen. With four months to the election, the party is frantically screening candidates to field in 84 seats, which is a pretty Herculean task when starting from a base of just one upper house MP. This week, the first batch of candidates were announced, along with Pickering as state leader. The candidate launch gives an idea of what One Nation’s campaign in Victoria will focus on. No surprises there:
Mr Pickering said while the party’s crime policy was still to be released, it would include the recruitment of more police officers.
“We (will) fill the 40 unmanned stations and will ensure we have a reserve force on hand for times of increased activity,” he said.
Mr Pickering said Victoria was “blowing money” on things he said it didn’t need, including the First Nations Assembly, renewables subsidies and the Suburban Rail Loop, and said One Nation would support a Royal Commission into corruption.
“A One Nation government royal commission won’t be a soft touch: it will have teeth and heads will roll,” he said […]
Current One Nation MP Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Liberal defector Colleen Harkin, animator and company director Mark Nicholson, lawyer Aaron Sanford, office manager and volunteer Natalie Adams, Geelong councillor Chris Burson and human resources manager Fiona Lopez were unveiled as One Nation upper house candidates on Monday.
Senator Hanson said the party would run candidates in every seat, with more to be announced soon.
It’s not just the task of recruiting nearly 100 new candidates in such a short time, but doing so knowing the vultures of the legacy media will be hovering, ready to pick over the bones of decades-old social media commentary. Still, One Nation know just how much the legacy media are hated by voters: the ABC, the Age and the Guardian, were all barred from the press conference. This follows a ban on the ABC from admission to One Nation’s David Farley’s victory speech at the Farrer by-election in May. Hanson made clear that they’ll only be allowed back in to One Nation events when they start telling the truth.
“I’m not putting up with their spin, their lies... I want truth and honesty.” she said. Millions of Australian voters would agree.
