By GREG ANSLEY
CANBERRA - The wrath of Pauline Hanson has now settled firmly over Australia as leaders in Canberra and Brisbane scramble to build defences against the nemesis of Western Australia's ousted coalition.
By directing its preferences away from Government MPs, Hanson's One Nation Party played a key role in handing the Labour Opposition 13 new seats and a comfortable majority, despite a swing in primary votes of just 2 per cent for Labour.
One Nation won about 10 per cent of the statewide vote and, by polling up to 20 per cent in rural areas, is likely to win as many as three seats in the Upper House, sharing the balance of power with the Greens.
Hanson's triumph has rattled political cages across the nation.
Led by Prime Minister John Howard, federal ministers yesterday urged conservative voters not to put Labour into power by fuelling Hanson's campaign of vengeance against politicians who tried to freeze her out.
In Brisbane, where One Nation preference votes could play as large a role as they did in the landslide that hurled Liberal Premier Richard Court from power in Western Australia, both Labour and the coalition Opposition watched with horror as Hanson flew home to campaign for this Saturday's state poll.
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie admitted the WA result scared him.
"The signal out of Western Australia is very clear," he said.
"It means we've got a really tough fight on our hands for the next week."
Opposition leader Rob Borbidge - who is already battling laryngitis and a rebellion by 17 of his MPs who intend directing their preferences to One Nation in defiance of his orders - also saw omens in Western Australia.
But "I'm not panicking and I'm not dead."
Hanson's resurgent power, fuelled by the same rural sense of anger, impotence and frustration that fed her initial rise in the 1998 elections, is also likely to be felt in the federal elections this year.
National issues such as rising petrol prices, lingering small business outrage at GST and its red tape, and the economic slowdown will play an even greater role in Howard's fight for survival than they did in Western Australia.
Hanson will target Howard and National Party leader John Anderson's MPs, just as Court's were in Western Australia because of their refusal to negotiate preference deals with One Nation.
Howard's reply is simple: "By voting One Nation and following their preferences you're voting for [Labour leader Kim] Beazley."
But the Government has seen Hanson's signature on the wall.
"One Nation wrecked the [former coalition] Government in Queensland two years ago and it's now wrecked the Court Government," said Employment Minister Tony Abbott.
Added Treasurer Peter Costello: "Kim Beazley has now decided he can surf One Nation into office, and that's what he intends to do."
Hanson's state triumph has Govt worried
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