Liberal plan for a Won Nation is fraught with danger

Scott Morrison’s appeal for voters to abandon One Nation and throw their support behind the Government again underlines the existential dilemma that has dogged the Coalition ever since Pauline Hanson stood in the Lower House in 1996 to warn that Australia was in danger of being swamped by Asians.

More than 20 years on from that moment the Coalition still does not have a broad answer to how to deal with the One Nation question.

That lack of a clear way forward now threatens to snuff out Scott Morrison’s dwindling hopes of retaining the keys to the Lodge.

The antics of One Nation as revealed in a stitch-up this week by news outlet Al Jazeera are extraordinary — even by One Nation’s remarkable record of chaos and scandal.

The almost comically amoral attempts by senior One Nation staff to undermine Australian gun laws in return for campaign cash from US-based groups such as the National Rifle Association expose the party for what it has become — a fraudulent outrage franchise that Hanson herself long ago outsourced to hucksters and chancers like James Ashby.

The scandal could not have landed at a worse time for Morrison. Just last week Opposition Leader Bill Shorten used a visit to Perth to open up a new front against the Coalition, demanding the Liberals place One Nation last on the ballot paper.

It was a clever re-run of the tactic WA Labor ran during the 2017 State election that blindsided Colin Barnett and so starved his campaign of oxygen.

Federal Liberal candidates now face the same question that haunted Barnett: where will they place One Nation on the ballot paper?

During the 2017 State election the One Nation issue snowballed for Barnett as the then premier found it increasingly impossible to draw a line between preferences and policy. He soon found himself in the hopeless position of trying to explain that he was taking only preferences from Hanson, and was often in violent disagreement with One Nation polices.

Labor’s tactics are already having an effect in this Federal contest.

Morrison’s appeal for One Nation voters to desert Hanson and throw their support behind the Government is a desperate one. But he has few good options left.

Christian Porter, who will likely need One Nation preferences if he is to save his skin in his northern suburbs seat, now finds himself regularly peppered with questions about preferences.

WA election analyst William Bowe says One Nation preferences can hand as much as a percentage point to the Coalition’s two-party preferred vote. That could make the difference between holding on to government and defeat.

These preference flows are particularly crucial in Queensland, where the structural marriage between the Liberals and Nationals gives One Nation space to mop up votes on the right.

Morrison claimed this week he was not seeking One Nation preferences but was after the primary votes of Australians who had drifted to Hanson after becoming disillusioned with the major parties.

It was in effect an admission that many One Nation voters had once been Coalition voters. He was careful not to demonise Hanson supporters, saying he knew many people had voted for Hanson in the past because of “frustrations” on a range of issues that “trouble Australians”.

Morrison handled the situation well considering the difficult circumstances before him.

But there remains a big question as to whether the appeal will amount to much in the way of primary votes flowing back to the Coalition. Many One Nation voters abandoned the Coalition out of frustration with the state of party politics and recent leadership chaos in the Liberals is unlikely to lure many disaffected voters back.

Instead One Nation voters are more likely to abandon Hanson for other minor parties, such as the Shooters and Fishers or Clive Palmer.

And then there’s the theory that many Hanson voters will applaud recent events.

Ashby clearly sees an advantage in talking up bats... crazy conspiracy theories about foreign interference by Qatar in the Al Jazeera expose.

Morrison’s appeal for One Nation voters to desert Hanson and throw their support behind the Government is a desperate one. But he has few good options left.