Pauline Hanson reveals new One Nation recruit
Source: Pauline Hanson
Former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi will be One Nation’s new South Australian leader, heading the party’s legislative team at next month’s state election.
“Cory has strong, sound conservative values that are an excellent fit with One Nation,” said Hanson late on Monday.
“He’s a prominent South Australian keen to make the positive differences in his home state the Liberals just can’t bring themselves to make.”
Bernardi was a Liberal senator from 2006 to 2017, representing South Australia. He quit the Liberals in 2017 to form his own party, Australian Conservatives, which disbanded in 2019.
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Bernardi resigned from politics in 2020 and had his own show as a political commentator for Sky News until 2023.
His recruitment follows the high-profile defection of former Nationals’ MP Barnaby Joyce and comes as One Nation soars to fresh heights of popularity.
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A RedBridge poll shows 26 per cent of Australians would put One Nation first on their ballot paper if an election were held on Monday — a nine-point increase in support.
In contrast, backing for the Liberal and National parties dropped to a combined 19 per cent, down seven percentage points December’s numbers.
Labor led the poll with 34 per cent of the primary vote.
Hanson scored highest in the poll with 38 per cent of respondents viewing her favourably, compared to 34 per cent for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Meanwhile, Nationals leader David Littleproud faces mounting pressure within his party to reunite with the Liberals after surviving an attempt to challenge his leadership.
Littleproud, who vowed no one within the Nationals could serve in a shadow cabinet under Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, is being urged to reunite the Coalition almost two weeks on from the latest break-up.
The pair met on Monday night ahead of parliament’s official return for the year, for the first formal talks to negotiate a potential reconciliation.
Deputy Nationals leader Kevin Hogan described the discussion as “really good, civil, co-operative and friendly”.
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“There is a will within our room, the Nationals and obviously the Liberal party room, that we want to be a Coalition again at some time in the future,” he told ABC’s 7.30.
“We have some issues to deal with, and we, in good faith, are trying to nut them out right now.”
Hogan said it was unlikely the two parties would face the first Question Time of the year together.
Littleproud blamed Ley for the split after she accepted the resignations of three Nationals senators who breached shadow cabinet solidarity by voting against an agreed position on hate crimes laws. Hogan said the key sticking point remained, and there had been no agreement about reinstated the trio.
On shadow cabinet solidarity, he said it had been fully discussed and that the Liberals had put forward suggestions.
“We’re going to take some of those ideas to our party room too, so that we can agree with some of the guardrails of how they want it to operate going forward,” Hogan said.
Earlier on Monday, Queensland backbencher Colin Boyce failed at a Nationals party room meeting to secure the support needed to formally bring on a vote to spill the leadership.
Boyce said the party needed to reunify to reform the Coalition, with a majority of MPs backing a separate motion introduced by Victorian MP Darren Chester to reinstate the political alliance.
Ley will also likely face a challenge to her leadership of the Liberals this fortnight by Angus Taylor.
The Nationals and Liberals are alarmed as polling continues to show surging support for One Nation, surpassing that of the Coalition.
Ley had previously given the Nationals a one-week deadline to come back into the fold.
The Liberals plan to expand their shadow cabinet if there is no agreement by next Monday, taking over the former frontbench roles of the Nationals.
The Nationals party room were to meet again on Tuesday before the chambers sit at midday AEDT.
-with AAP
