Pauline Hanson has suggested that Clive Palmer is trying to buy his way into parliament and accused him of creating “chaos” last time he was elected.
Hanson made the comments to Radio National on Tuesday, in a sign that competition for votes on the right-wing of Australian politics is creating tension between the One Nation and United Australia parties.
Hanson denied she or One Nation had ever supported white nationalism, but suggested the disendorsed Liberal candidate for Lyons, Jessica Whelan – who was dumped for anti-Islamic views – could be “a Pauline Hanson of 2019” and go on to win her seat.
While Newspoll has the minor parties level-pegging on 5% of the vote, Ipsos suggests One Nation leads the United Australia party by 5% to 3% and the Guardian’s Essential poll finds One Nation on 7% while UAP and other independents are on a 9% primary vote.
The minor parties are a chance to win a handful of Senate seats – especially in Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia – but are likely to be in competition for the sixth spot in each state, pitting Palmer against One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts in Queensland, for example.
The UAP New South Wales candidate, ex-One Nation senator Brian Burston, has said Palmer will spend up to $60m to re-enter parliament.
Asked if Palmer is trying to buy his way back into politics, Hanson replied “I think he is in a lot of ways”.
“I know that he was rarely there – he actually had the worst record for turning up to parliament, when he was the member [for] Fairfax,” she said.
Hanson said Palmer had refused to swap preferences with One Nation because her name is on the party and “Clive Palmer sees me as a threat – from the conservative side of politics”.
The One Nation leader defended her record flip-flopping on the Coalition’s corporate tax cuts, revealing that Palmer had “made approaches, that he wanted the corporate tax cuts to go through because it would be more profitable for him” when the fate of big business tax cuts were in One Nation’s hands.
Hanson said she was unsure why Palmer wants to re-enter politics, adding that she is “amazed” the Liberal party had done a preference deal with him when Queensland Nickel had failed to pay its workers, resulting in the commonwealth picking up its $67m unpaid wages bill.
Hanson said Palmer’s party was “in chaos” the first time around, referring to the fact senators Glenn Lazarus and Jacqui Lambie left the party “because he wanted to control them”.
In the 45th parliament One Nation has lost four senators: Roberts and Rodney Culleton, who were disqualified by section 44 of the constitution; Fraser Anning, who replaced Roberts, and Burston, who left the party because Hanson refused to back further company tax cuts.
Hanson said she opposes Labor’s changes to franking credits, which she claimed would “double tax” dividends, but could work with them on negative gearing by limiting it to two houses.
Hanson said Australia “needs to have a reduction in immigration” and One Nation takes the same view as Donald Trump that “people from fundamentalist Islamic countries are not compatible with our way of life”.
In her first Senate speech Hanson claimed Australia was being “swamped by Muslims”, one of a number of Islamophobic statements criticised in the wake of the Christchurch terror attacks.
Hanson denied any contact with Whelan, but compared her disendorsement in Lyons with Hanson’s own dumping from the Liberal party in 1996 before she went on to win the seat of Oxley.
“You never know what might happen for Jessica [Whelan], because people in her electorate might actually come out and support her and she might be a Pauline Hanson of 2019.”
Hanson said that Fraser Anning “has nothing to do with me”, despite the fact he was preselected for One Nation and entered the Senate when Roberts was disqualified.
“I don’t believe in extremist [views] or white supremacy … I have nothing to do with it, never have done and never will.”
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