Preference Deals

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (15:45): I regret that my speech is not going to be music to the ears of the honourable member because I am about to speak about the dirty deal between the Liberals and One Nation, a matter that I know will be of concern to many people in our state. It is an issue that has not had appropriate focus during this election campaign, but just a week or so ago the Liberal Party quietly announced that in 139 of the 147 seats where One Nation is running a candidate the Coalition will recommend that its voters put One Nation above the Labor Party.

In 55 of these seats, the Coalition has placed One Nation candidates in second place. In the rest of the seats, candidates from minor conservative groupings like Family First and the Libertarian Party are being preferenced before One Nation, but One Nation is still ranked before Labor and, of course, before the Greens. The Coalition has also given One Nation top ranking on its Senate preference sheets after its own candidates in Queensland, WA, SA and Tasmania.

What does this mean in practical terms? In South Australia, according to the polls, we have a very tight race for the Senate and, according to the latest opinion polls, the Liberal Party are polling at around 30 per cent. As a result of this preference deal, they all but guarantee the election of a One Nation Senator should their preferences flow the way they are recommending.

What does this say about the modern Liberal Party? John Howard was very clear that the Liberal Party would never preference One Nation. Indeed, back in 1998, he said:

We will not be entering into any coalition or preference deals with One Nation. Their policies are divisive and not in line with the values of the Liberal Party.

Tony Abbott in 2011:

We will not be entering into any coalition or preference deals with One Nation. Their policies are divisive.

Tony Abbott in 2013:

The Liberal Party will preference One Nation below the Labor Party at the federal election.

Malcolm Turnbull in 2017:

We will not be doing any preference deals with One Nation. We are a mainstream party, and we will not be trading preferences with extremists.

Peter Dutton in 2017:

The Liberal Party will preference One Nation below the Labor Party.

In 2019, Peter Dutton said:

We will not be doing any preference deals with One Nation. We are a mainstream party…

What does it say about the modern Liberal Party that they would get into bed with extremists like One Nation? The Saturday Paper wrote an interesting exposé on this, and I quote from Mike Seccombe where he interviews key people within the Liberal Party in his article 'Devastating: Inside the Liberals' One Nation deal'. He speaks to long-term Liberal, Jim Barron, who notes that:

All these years later, the Liberal Party has embraced the person who it once excommunicated.

This is Pauline Hanson. He says:

It's devastating. And I think that says more about the Liberal Party than it does about One Nation. Its radical, hardline racist policies used to be at the fringes of politics. Now they no longer live on the fringe. The Liberal Party has pretty much normalised a lot of what Hanson was going on about.

What a disgrace. And what exactly are One Nation's policies? Here is a little snapshot for you. They want to ban Muslim immigration. They want to ban burkas. Pauline Hanson wants to ban halal certification, she says it funds terrorism. They want to conduct surveillance in mosques. They want to abolish native title claims. They want to cut Indigenous programs. They want to withdraw Australia from global bodies—from the United Nations, the World Health Organization. They do not support climate change, of course. They oppose same-sex marriage. They oppose foreign aid. They oppose gun control, one of John Howard's great achievements when he was in office.

I do not have enough time to talk about the myriad toxic policies of One Nation's political handmaiden Family First, the homophobic, transphobic, sexist and misogynistic political party at a national level that offers a very dangerous vision for our society. But might I say I am deeply concerned about what the Liberal Party are doing here. They run the risk of giving Pauline Hanson and One Nation a serious leg-up and Lyle Shelton, the former ACL advocate, a leg-up in the federal parliament. It is a disgrace, and they should be held to account by the South Australian people on Saturday.