‘One Nation is the story': Hanson throws up election wildcard

Sydney Morning Herald

29-04-2025

Pauline Hanson's One Nation says a move to prop up Coalition candidates in key seats is designed to stop Anthony Albanese retaining power, as rising support for the right-wing party gives the Coalition hope of upset wins in Labor heartland seats on the minor party's preferences.
Hanson placed the Coalition second on how-to-vote cards in about a dozen seats, including Opposition Leader Peter Dutton's, after the Coalition preferenced One Nation in 57 seats in a departure from previous attempts to lock out the minor party.
Hanson said the movement toward One Nation, being picked up in published and major party polling, showed its messages were resonating with voters as her chief of staff, James Ashby, said there had been no quid-pro-quo with Dutton.
'People are saying, 'You've been warning us for years',' Hanson said, as her party's primary vote rises in polls from the less than 5 per cent it recorded at the 2022 election. 'On high migration, the tipping point for a lot of people was under the Albanese government.'
Immigration has been high under Labor, but that comes after a period when borders were closed during the pandemic, putting numbers broadly on the same track it was before the pandemic.
'Isn't it funny now that leaders around the world, including John Howard, said multiculturalism hasn't worked. I'm 30 years ahead of them,' Hanson said.
Then-prime minister Howard refused Hanson's preferences in 1998 partly over the firebrand's infamous statement that Australia risked being 'swamped by Asians'.
But the Coalition has not rejected One Nation preferences this year. Ashby said the party had taken a 'principled approach' to preference the Liberal Party above Labor and conservative minor parties that were not running seriously in particular seats.
'We opted to move the Liberals up into second position in some of those key seats that we feel could be the make or break of a Coalition government versus Labor,' Ashby said.