Politicians stick boot into Hanson
AUSTRALIA: Federal politicians are lining up to declare One Nation’s run of success over in the wake of the party’s underwhelming result in the Western Australian state election, where it attracted only 4.7 per cent of the vote.
The right-wing populist party’s preference deal with the Liberal Party has also faced renewed criticism, labelled a mistake by Pauline Hanson and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce.
But, despite the reaction, Finance Minister and senior WA Liberal Mathias Cormann refused to rule out a similar arrangement at the next federal election.
On the back of a brutal swing against outgoing Premier Colin Barnett’s Liberal government, Labor will assume power with more than 42 per cent of the vote.
The election was also seen as the next big test for the resurgent One Nation, with polls predicting approximately 10 per cent of the vote or higher.
Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese said their failure to deliver on these hopes meant ‘‘the mob have worked [Senator Hanson] out’’ and labelled the result a ‘‘rejection’’ of the party and a warning for the Liberal Party.
‘‘She’s good at identifying problems and grievances but she doesn’t provide solutions.
‘‘And the deal with the Liberal Party showed her to be just another political party looking to put people into Parliament rather than someone who acts as a matter of principle and I think it hurt both of them,’’ he said.
Joyce said the Liberals had a ‘‘bad day at the office’’, One Nation had a ‘‘shocker’’ and called their preference deal a ‘‘mistake’’.
‘‘All the imbroglio with regards to preferences means people start to over-assess and exaggerate what they think the support is of their new partner and they also just confuse their constituencies.
‘‘So it’s in the Liberal Party’s interests to be close to the National Party and it’s in the National Party’s interests to be close to the Liberal Party,’’ he said. ’’You rate your preferences in the form of who you would like to run the country first, or the state first, and who you would like to run the country or the state second, third, fourth, fifth. And who you definitely don’t want to run the country and they go down the bottom.’’
But Joyce’s federal Coalition colleague, Senator Cormann, defended the arrangement as necessary because of the Liberals’ weak primary vote in the state.
‘‘If we wanted to minimise losses, maximise our chances of holding onto seats, we needed to be able to source preferences and clearly, these weren’t going to come from Labor and the Greens,’’ he told ABC’S Insiders program.
Cormann also declined to rule out a deal at the federal level, saying ‘‘these are judgements that will be made at the right time. I can’t make them’’.
A bigger test of how sustainable One Nation’s return is will be the upcoming Queensland election.
The party has deeper roots and an established party machinery in Senator Hanson’s home state.