Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has made a last-minute preference change to help the Coalition, including in Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s own seat.
With early voting set to begin on Tuesday, One Nation has authorised the re-printing of “how to vote” cards in at least ten seats vital to the Coalition to preference Liberal or National Party candidates second, with more under consideration.
In Mr Dutton’s electorate of Dickson, which is Queensland’s most marginal seat and held by a margin of less than 2%, One Nation originally had the Liberal Party leader preferenced at 4, behind Trumpet of Patriots candidate Michael Jessop and Suniti Hewett from Family First, but new cards will have him at 2 instead.
Coalition candidates will also be put second in the Queensland seat of Blair, in Hunter, Paterson, Shortland, Whitlam and Calare in NSW, Monash and Bruce in Victoria, and Lyons in Tasmania, News Corp’s National News Network reported.
In Hunter the change will affect Trumpet of Patriots leader Suellen Wrightson, who was originally Ms Hanson’s second preference recommendation behind Stuart Bonds, who won 5.69% of the primary vote running as an independent candidate last election while One Nation’s Dale McNamara picked up 9.9%.
Australian voters do not have to follow the “how to vote” card preference recommendations of their first-choice candidate, but many do, meaning the printed flyers can affect election results.
One Nation chief of staff James Ashby said the switch was made in response to rival right-wing minor party Trumpet of Patriots choosing to place both Labor and Coalition candidates last in seats they held, which he said put conservative candidates’ seats “at risk”.
“If it means saving Peter Dutton by shifting a ‘how to vote’ then we will do so,” he said.
The change comes after Ms Hanson was labelled a “sell out” last month for saying she supported Mr Dutton and his policies and that he would make a “very good Prime Minister”.
Trumpet of Patriots party chairman Clive Palmer revealed on Friday that his party would preference Labor and Coaltion last in order to “break up the two-party duopoly”.
“Liberal and Labor are the same, 99% of the time they have the same policies and Australians are fed up,” Mr Palmer said.
“I’ve seen the quality of the people that operate in the Opposition and in the Government who share picnics together on weekends and other social outings.
“They don’t really dislike each other, it’s a case of you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. That’s why we’ve had a Uni-Party for many years and that’s why we are going backwards.”
Header image: Left, Pauline Hanson visits a Sikh temple last year (Facebook). Right, the pre-change Dickson how to vote card (One Nation).
