Coalition strategists have warned Peter Dutton’s move to putOne Nationabove Labor and other parties on some how-to-vote cards could damage support among metropolitan voters and help independents in at-risk seats such as the New South Wales electorate of Cowper.
TheCoalitionbelieves preference flows from One Nation and other rightwing candidates could push Liberal and National candidates over the line in tight regional and outer suburban contests, but some Coalition insiders have criticised the decision.
Tuesday’sGuardian Essential pollhad One Nation attracting 10% of first-preference support, above the 8% in the latest Newspoll. A YouGov poll of 10 regional seats showed One Nation on track to push ahead of the Nationals candidate in the NSW seat of Hunter, finishing second to Labor.
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The preference arrangement was designed to weaken mining magnateClive Palmer’s cashed-up Trumpet of Patriots partyand shore up the Coalition against Labor. One Nation has reprinted how-to-vote cards in a dozen seats, including Hunter and Calare in NSW and Monash and Bruce in Victoria.
The Coalition does not expect Pauline Hanson’s party to win lower house seats but hopes that Liberals and Nationals will benefit from preference flows from One Nation above the national average of 61.3% recorded in 2022.
In Hunter, where 72.5% of One Nation preferences went to theNational partycandidate in 2022, flows of above 80% are expected to help its candidate, Sue Gilroy, this time.
One Nation has preferenced Nationals candidates ahead of Liberals in three-cornered races, which a One Nation spokesperson said was part of a handshake agreement with leader David Littleproud.
One Nation moved Dutton from fourth on the how-to-vote card to second in his Queensland seat of Dickson. Dutton declined to answer questions about the preference deal on Tuesday.
One longtime Coalition strategist warned many traditional Liberal and National supporters were uncomfortable with any link to One Nation.
“It is particularly uncomfortable when you know that Pauline Hanson made it very clear that she is not compromising on any of her views,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“They will undoubtedly peel off votes from Coalition candidates. I don’t see people on the ground handing out One Nation how-to-vote cards, which would ensure those preferences come back.”
Other Coalition figures said the deal would further legitimise Hanson and reduce brand differentiation from Liberals and Nationals.
They nominated Cowper, where the independent Caz Heise is taking on the Nationals MP, Pat Conaghan, as one seat where the deal could do more harm than good. Conaghan has a 2.4% margin.
“The One Nation preferences cannot be relied upon,” the strategist said. “The reporting says it is about 70%, so that means you are missing about 30%. It is poor judgment.”
The pollster and former Liberal state director Tony Barry linked One Nation’s growing support to the rightwing campaign group Advance, and its message about Australia becoming too “woke”.
“It is a small base that gets energised by it,” he said. “It is nowhere near a majority of Australians.
“They believe that preference flow from One Nation will come back to them more than it usually does, so they are going to perform better with preference flows. There’s a sense that they will get a better preference discipline from One Nation voters this time. That would obviously not be insignificant.”
One Nation and the Coalition are both responding to the decision of Palmer’sTrumpet of Patriotsto put incumbents in last position on how-to-vote cards, potentially damaging sitting MPs in seats such as Leichhardt, in far north Queensland, which Labor has hopes of gaining.
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A spokesperson for One Nation said the party had changed its preferences in marginal seats where Labor was a chance of winning, in part to offset the move by Trumpet of Patriots.
Trumpet of Patriots has used unsolicited text messages to voters to warn that voting One Nation “is a vote for the Liberal party”.
Hanson stood as a Liberal candidate in Queensland in 1996 but was dramatically disendorsed on the instructions ofJohn Howard, after she called for an end to government assistance to Indigenous Australians.
Hanson then won the Queensland seat of Oxley as an independent and used her maiden speech to parliament to warn Australia was “in danger of being swamped by Asians”.
Hanson said in 2016 Australia was being “swamped by Muslims”. She controversially wore a burqa in the Senate and praised Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, for being “a strong leader”.
The Coalition’s campaign spokesman, James Paterson, told ABC radio on Tuesday he supported the preference deal.
“The Liberal party preferences will not be distributed to One Nation candidates in any seat around the country because One Nation is not in contention to win any lower house seat anywhere around the country,” Paterson said.
ButStuart Bonds, One Nation’s candidate in Hunter, said he was seeing a groundswell of support. Hunter is held by Labor’s Dan Repacholi on a 4.8% margin.
“People have had enough,” Bonds said. “They’re just busted with energy prices and they don’t feel their jobs are secure. They don’t feel Labor has done enough to protect their jobs.”
A cattle farmer and coalminer, Bonds came close to unseating Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon in 2019, securing a 20% swing. He ran as an independent in 2022 but secured less than 6% of the primary vote.
Hanson has called Bonds One Nation’s best chance to win a lower house seat this time around.
“If this trend continues all week, the seat will either go or become very marginal,” Bonds said.