Pauline Hanson ‘happy’ helping Liberals and Nationals but insists she’ll never be controlled by the Coalition

One Nation founder Pauline Hanson says she’s “very happy” to support the Liberals and Nationals with preferences to help get rid of “Australia’s worst government” but has declared her own party will never join the coalition where it would be told what it can say and do.

Speaking just days after the South Australian election where One Nation has clinched at least two, and possibly as many as five lower house seats, the outspoken Senator has discussed the growing success of her right-wing party.

Appearing at Minerals Council of Australia event in Canberra, the Queensland Senator was asked whether she was prepared to do a preference deal with the Coalition at the next federal election which is expected in 2028.

“At the last federal election, One Nation did preference the National Party - we did a deal. We swapped preferences with them, before anyone else. My policy has been all along: the Greens absolutely last, then the Teals, and then Labor, and then we put the coalition above that.”

“We’ve always worked with them. So, this attitude at the moment that I’m hearing from the coalition is a load of bloody rubbish, to tell you the truth, I’m sick and tired of hearing it.”

“My whole attitude is: the worst government we’ve ever had, the worst Prime Minister we’ve ever had has to go, and I will work with (the Coalition). And as I’ve said constantly all the time, this is not about Pauline Hanson, this is not just about One Nation.”

“They have provided the vehicle for us because the coalition have failed to deliver the policies that people out there are screaming for people want to change. They want to get rid of the Labor Party, by all means. So as I said, work with me.”

Senator Hanson then urged the Coalition to “get rid of this bloody mindedness, as if I’m taking votes from them”, insisting her party was not taking voters away from the Liberal and National parties but were just expressing a need for “real change”.

“So if we do have numbers after the next election, if my numbers will actually give them government, very happy to do it. I will not form a coalition with them, where I will be told what I can say, what I can do, what policies I can put up like they control the National Party and shut them down.”

The One Nation leader said she would also be prepared to help prop up a minority Coalition government, declaring: “I will give them supply and I will give them confidence (but) don’t ever try and tell me what I can or can’t do.”

During a subsequent speech, Labor’s Environment Minister Murray Watt told the mining conference there appeared to be an “emerging ragtag coalition between the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation who seem to be more focused on who can look the angriest”.

“This change in the vote, particularly on the conservative side of politics, it’s not just a story about who’s up and who’s down in the opinion polls. It’s a complete reshaping of the choice that’s available to Australian voters when they’re deciding who should govern our country.”

“One Nation have now so successfully cannibalised the Liberal party vote that the Liberals cannot form government without them, but One Nation can’t win an election in their own right either. They would need support from the Liberals,” Senator Watt said.

“The truth is that in this new era that we’re living through; the Liberals and One Nation can only form government by forming government together, and that’s something I think we’ve all got to get our heads around.”

“That combination, I don’t think will produce the stable, mature and considered government that Australia needs now and for the foreseeable future, but it is those characteristics that shape the Albanese Labor government,” he argued.