One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson believes her party could stand a good chance in the coal-mining seat of Hunter, north of Sydney.
“The only lower house seat I think we’ve got a chance of winning is the Hunter Valley,” Hanson told The Epoch Times during an Australian Jewish Association conference.
“We’ve got Stuart Bonds standing there, so it’ll come down to the National Party [Sue Gilroy] and One Nation to win that seat,” Hanson said, noting that there were challenges for her party because One Nation was preferenced last by Labor.
Bonds attracted over 2 million views across social media platforms for his video promoting coal mining, and how it should make up the bulk of the nation’s energy consumption.
He questioned why Australia exports coal to China, only for China to use it to power the manufacturing of wind turbines and solar panels, which are then sent back Down Under.
Bonds walked away from the prospect of representing the Nationals for Hunter.
Weeks earlier, a Roy Morgan survey found One Nation’s popularity rose 0.5 percent to 6 percent, meaning the minor party’s chances in the House of Representatives is low, but Hanson is confident there’s a chance in the Senate.
“If we can get the balance of power in the Senate, whoever is in government—if we have that power in the Senate, we can then reject or amend legislation, or pass it—based on what I think is right for the country,” she said.
Hanson and Malcolm Roberts are incumbent senators in Queensland.
Her daughter Lee is running in Tasmania, along with Warren Pickering in Victoria, and Warwick Stacey in New South Wales.
The senator also has a reminder for voters to fill out their voting card properly.
Liberals Opening Up to One Nation Policies
Hanson said Australia’s major centre-right party, the Liberals, were waking up to her “Australia-first” agenda, after not preferencing One Nation in the 2022 federal election.Proof of this is in immigration ideology, with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton promising to reduce the permanent migration intake by 25 percent from 260,000 to 160,000.
One Nation has gone further, vowing to cap visas at 130,000 per year.
Hanson believes both One Nation and the Liberals can mend past tensions.
“Last election, the Libs did not give us preferences. That was the problem. The Libs hated me more than what they did the Greens or Labor,” she said.
“But now, I think they’ve started to wake up and know they have to work with One Nation.
Calls to Pull Out of Paris Agreement
Earlier this month, Libertarian Senate candidate Jordan Ditloff told The Epoch Times that local, state and federal government had become too bloated.He added his party would implement Elon Musk-style Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts if it was to win any federal parliament influence.
“No matter how much the government attempts to solve problems for you, it almost always gets it wrong,” he told this publication.
Hanson has also made a vow to reduce the number of government bureaucrats.
Leaving the United Nations Paris Agreement and putting an end to climate change funding would allow One Nation to make massive cost cuts which would benefit the taxpayer, she believes.
“We’re spending $30 billion a year on climate change–a department that we don’t need” she said.
“We’d get out of the Paris Agreement. We would get out of making all these transmission lines [for the renewable energy transition]. It’s going to cost us $1.5 trillion for this.
“And it’s not helping our country. We’re seeing industries and manufacturing closing down, and going overseas.”
