Pauline Hanson, Barnaby Joyce declare One Nation can win government amid surging support in polls

Pauline Hanson has declared she wants One Nation to eventually form government as new opinion polls show a surge in support for her minor party and its primary vote eclipses the Coalition’s for the first time.

The outspoken senator has attributed the rising popularity to last year’s assassination of conservative US commentator Charlie Kirk, debate over mass migration and a lack of housing, jobs and security.

She also boasted of her leadership skills for encouraging former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce to defect to her party, which she credits for helping lift One Nation’s vote.

“Wasn’t I smart as a leader to actually get Barnaby across, and yet his own party, the Nationals, couldn’t see it and sidelined him. This is what leadership is about. It’s about getting the right team around you,” Senator Hanson told reporters in Canberra.

Her triumphant appearance at Parliament House, where she is still temporarily banned for last year wearing a burqa in the chamber, came as the latest Newspoll recorded One Nation’s primary vote lifting seven points to 22 per cent.

According to Newspoll, the Coalition’s support is now at a record low of 21 per cent, and Labor’s has slid four points to 32 per cent, but the government is still enjoying a healthy 55-45 lead over the opposition once preferences are considered.

Another survey by Resolve shows a closer two-party preferred result with Labor ahead of the Coalition 52-48, and the opposition ten points clear of One Nation on primary support.

The Coalition’s Newspoll result is also the first time it has fallen behind a minor party but coincides with a large fall in the Prime Minister’s personal approval with 53 per cent of respondents now dissatisfied and only 43 per cent satisfied with his performance.

Asked whether One Nation party could ever reach the popularity levels of Nigel Farage’s Reform Party in the United Kingdom, the 71-year-old Senator insisted she was only focussed on her own record.

“I’ve been around long before the Nigel Farage and long before Trump, so therefore I’ve set the record, my record is what I want. Go and look at my speeches, what I’ve said in the past. I don’t fade away from anything. I stand up for what I believe in.”

Asked repeatedly by The Nightly which lower House seats One Nation could possibly win to form government Senator Hanson would only nominate her home state of Queensland as the most likely area.

In an interview with The Nightly Barnaby Joyce declined to also specify which lower house seats he believed One Nation could win at the next election, but said it was “very much” a possibility.

“I mean, you have to be a realist. Once your numbers start going above 13, 14 per cent you come in the realm of getting lower house seats. If you start saying which ones - I wouldn’t be so bold to say that,” Mr Joyce said.

Inside Coalition ranks there is continuing concern about the prospect of other defections to One Nation, with constant speculation that Queensland MPs Colin Boyce and Llew O’Brien could switch parties before the next election.

Mr Joyce declined to say whether he thought his close friend and former colleague Mr O’Brien could eventually follow him to One Nation, after the Nationals MP briefly moved to the crossbench in 2020 as a protest.

“Well, it’s questions for him. I never ever will talk on someone else’s behalf. In fact, if someone said to me, I should, I’d say, no, no, that’s not for me. That’s for you to come to your own conclusions on that one,” he told The Nightly.

On Monday Pauline Hanson also insisted she was not speaking to other potential defectors to her party, declaring: “No, I’m not picking up the phone to any other member of parliament asking them to come across to One Nation. I make that very clear”. Several Coalition MPs who spoke to The Nightly on Monday played down the significance of the latest polling saying that while the numbers were concerning, they did not believe One Nation was on track to finally win lower house seats.

“These results are not nothing, but they’re also not everything – I would be more worried if I was seeing these figures eight months out from an election, rather than eight months after Australians voted”, one veteran Nationals Senator said.

However, Labor strategist and pollster Kos Samaras has described the latest Newspoll results as alarming for the right of politics in Australia, and predicted future surveys would also show One Nation as the second-largest conservative party in the country.

“It’s a monumental crisis on the Right: the conservative vote is fragmenting, the Liberal brand is bleeding legitimacy, and One Nation is vacuuming up the authentic Right space that the Coalition keeps trying (and failing) to straddle,” he wrote online.