The preference deal with One Nation means Pauline Hanson is a “red tattoo” that will mark the Western Australian Liberals, the former senator Rodney Culleton has said.
The former One Nation treasurer Ian Nelson said the Barnett government had shown a “mercenary” attitude to the Nationals and the deal indicated the Liberals were taking their cues from a resurgent One Nation.
The pair’s comments show concerns about the deal are not limited to Nationals MPs and Barnaby Joyce, who warned giving preference to One Nation at the federal level would put the Liberals out of government, and Liberal ministers who have sought to confine the import of the deal.
The decision by the Liberals in WA to preference One Nation ahead of the Nationals in the upper house country regions – in return demanding that One Nation preference the Liberals above Labor in the lower-house seats it is contesting –dominated question time on Monday.
Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce attempted to fend off Labor attacks by claiming it had won several seats with One Nation preferences, although Labor did not do deals directing preferences to One Nation.
Several One Nation candidates have already indicated they will not abide by the deal, with the ABC and the West Australian reporting that the high-profile candidate Margaret Dodd has said she would put the Liberals last on her how-to-vote card and others indicating they will leave theirs blank.
On Monday Culleton told Guardian Australia the preference deal was “no surprise” and noted that Hanson and his former colleagues’ voting record had “Liberal written all over it”.
One Nation has voted with the government on contentious legislation including two industrial relations bills.
Culleton, who resigned from One Nation in December before losing his seat due to bankruptcy and a disqualification for an annulled larceny conviction, believes Hanson has softened her stance on a banking royal commission, which she has denied.
The former senator said he disapproved of the deal, because “the whole reason we’ve got to have more independents and smaller parties is for them to have the courage to go ahead themselves, not just become another Liberal tattoo”.
“Pauline Hanson is a nice big red mark on the shoulder of the WA Liberals – Colin Barnett has a red tattoo he can’t remove.”
Nelson said the deal was “bewildering” because he would have thought the Liberals would always preference the Nationals first.
“To put One Nation ahead of the Nationals shows they’re being quite mercenary about the whole thing because One Nation is going to get more votes,” he said.
Nelson said the Liberals were finding that Hanson’s views – which he said had not changed in 20 years – were “closer to the punters than the Liberals and Nationals”.
Nelson said One Nation should deal with the Liberals and Labor for preferences on a “case by case basis” but Labor had an “irrational hatred” of One Nation that would cost it electorally. The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, and the deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, have said that Labor will never trade preferences with the party.
Labor will NOT give One Nation its preferences – anywhere, any time. I call on Mr Turnbull to show some leadership & do the same. #auspol
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) February 13, 2017
The former Liberal leader John Hewson told Guardian Australia he would preference One Nation last “on policy principle”.
But he said “circumstances had changed” because One Nation had become more professional and “established its own credibility” through rising electoral support and winning four Senate seats.
“Today politics is very short term and populist – principle doesn’t matter,” he said.
Hewson said that Colin Barnett and Malcolm Turnbull were doing what they could to hang on to government, adding they are faced with political opponents, including Shorten and the Nick Xenophon Team, who would also do anything to win.
Tony Abbott has said the Liberal party should always preference the Nationals ahead of One Nation. Joyce warned that the West Australian premier was “flirting with a concept that would put his own side and Liberal colleagues in opposition”.
The Nationals MP Andrew Broad told Guardian Australia: “It is a political reality that the Australian Liberal party needs the Nationals more than the Nationals need them.
“The Liberals have never [and could never] form government without the Nationals. It’s wise to remember this.”
The social services minister, Christian Porter, told a press conference in Canberra that the relationship between the Liberals and Nationals in Western Australia is “completely different” to its structure elsewhere.
“What has happened over eight years in Western Australia has been described generally as an alliance,” he said, noting the difference with the Coalition between the two parties at the federal level.
Asked if the deal with One Nation was dragging the Liberal party to the right, the treasurer, Scott Morrison, replied the federal party was “not in a relationship with the One Nation party”.
The attorney general, George Brandis, told Sky News on Monday that the WA Nationals had preferenced One Nation ahead of the Liberals at the 2008 state election and in 2013 put the Shooters and Fishers ahead.
“There has been a history in Western Australia ... of the Liberal and National parties ... putting other conservative parties intermediately between themselves in the upper house,” he said.
