Brunker defies Premier

A LABOR candidate in a key regional seat has been caught advocating for voters to preference the LNP last, behind One Nation, in direct defiance of the Premier.

Despite Annastacia Palaszczuk repeatedly stating Labor would preference Pauline Hanson’s party last on its how-to-vote cards, Labor’s Cfmeu-aligned Burdekin candidate shared a Facebook post yesterday in which he urged voters to put LNP MP “Dale Last last”.

Despite the news blindsiding Ms Palaszczuk, Mike Brunker doubled down, saying he “doesn’t care” how people vote, as long as they vote for him.

Ms Palaszczuk had just warned voters the state’s economic and health recovery “could be at risk because of Deb Frecklington and her deals with One Nation and all the other parties” when news of Mr Brunker’s move caught her off guard yesterday.

Asked whether she was aware of Mr Brunker’s direction to voters, she said: “No,

I’m very clear that I’ve said to everyone that One Nation is last.”

She did not say whether she would require Mr Brunker to “fix” the advertisement and said “he should talk to the party about that”.

She said it was her “understanding” that it was still Labor’s long-held position to put One Nation last.

Mr Brunker’s post was afterwards missing from his social media page, but he denied having been ordered to take it down.

“I’ll go and put it up again this afternoon,” he said of the offending post.

Mr Brunker said he didn’t care which way people voted, as long as they voted for him first.

“It’s just a play on words,” he said of the post.

“People can do they like.

“I’d like a dollar for everyone who comes up to me and say, ‘I put Last last’, it’s just a throwaway line.

“As long as I’m number one, or if they’re voting for the minority party, I’m number two, I don’t care which way they vote.” whatever