Pauline Hanson says the Coalition’s record-low popularity shows the opposition has lost touch with voters, while Liberal leader Angus Taylor refused to answer questions about polling numbers worse than when he ousted his predecessor Sussan Ley.
The latest Resolve Political Monitor, conducted for this masthead, showed 33 per cent of voters wanted Hanson as prime minister, over 29 per cent who nominated Anthony Albanese. Undecided voters made up 22 per cent, while just 16 per cent of voters wanted Taylor.
Hanson said on Monday the results showed the Coalition was “not really understanding the way that people think”.
“Conservative politics has been buried. We’ve listened too much to the ideology, the woke agenda, everything that’s happening. People want change,” the One Nation leader said.
Taylor, speaking at a press conference after a small business roundtable in Sydney, refused to answer questions about his party’s prospects after the poll showed the Coalition slumping to a record-low primary vote of 20 per cent.
“Others will talk about politics and inside-the-Beltway stuff. My focus is on the outcomes for Australians,” Taylor said. “In that room just a moment ago, no one was talking about polls.”
The Coalition’s primary vote fell to 23 per cent under former opposition leader Sussan Ley, before Taylor launched a February coup.
Off the back of the latest poll – and as One Nation’s “Fire the Liar” fundraiser hit $4 million in less than a week – Barnaby Joyce insisted his party was not getting carried away with its surging popularity.
“I’m very aware of hubris. We will concentrate on the here and now,” Joyce told Radio National.
“The election is still some way away, and polls are indicators, not votes. So that would sound sort of sanguine, maybe, coming from me, but it’s really the issues that are before people [that] are what are changing the polls.”
Joyce said One Nation was committed to fielding a candidate in every electorate after an extraordinary proposal from Liberal MP Tony Pasin that the Coalition divide seats with One Nation at the next election.
“It would be a little bit odd for the One Nation supporters in an area to not have a One Nation candidate; that is, they will have a One Nation candidate,” Joyce said.
But he recommitted to wanting a preference deal with the Coalition. He said that One Nation putting the Nationals second and the Liberals third on how-to-vote cards in the Farrer byelection last month was an indicator of the party’s thinking.
“We’ll stand by our records of sort of philosophically aligning ourselves with those we believe have a similar philosophy to us.”
Joyce said a preference deal would not mean joining the Coalition, and reiterated One Nation wanted to axe the nation’s climate change department and policies.
“We believe the cost of that has been massive to the people most vulnerable and has de-industrialised Australia, making our whole nation weaker.”
Joyce again downplayed any potential leadership aspirations after the 72-year-old Hanson hinted last week that she would wait to retire until her daughter, Lee – who will take a second run at the Senate for Tasmania at the next election – could take over the party.
“Honestly, I’m here for the philosophical change for Australia to try and get us back on track to try and make sure we become as strong, as powerful, as quickly as possible… because we’ve got China breathing down our neck,” Joyce told Seven’s Sunrise.
Asked again on Radio National whether he, a former leader of the Nationals and deputy prime minister, would be happy for the One Nation leadership to go to someone else, Joyce said: “I would never ever fall into the trap of talking about prospective positions in the future.”
In a sign of the government increasingly confronting One Nation head on, Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek, appearing alongside Joyce on Sunrise, touted reforms that benefit those in the One Nation MP’s electorate.
“The sort of investments we’re making in healthcare, like the Tamworth Urgent Care Clinic in Barnaby’s electorate, has seen more than 30,000 people,” Plibersek said.
“We’ve seen millions of cheaper prescriptions in Barnaby’s electorate that saved his constituents about $18 million. You’ve got 15,500 people who are getting a cut to their student debt in Barnaby’s electorate alone. And about 2500 have got into a home of their own because of our 5 per cent deposits.”
Joyce joked that Plibersek must be moving to Tamworth.
“I welcome you when you arrive here, but … you took the money away from the Inland Rail. You are bringing massive tax increases, Tanya.”
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.
Brittany Busch is a federal politics reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
Discover more from PressNewsAgency
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.