One Nation's return from oblivion in federal election year jangles nerves in Canberra, writes GREG ANSLEY.
CANBERRA - Pauline Hanson has confirmed her spectacular rise from the political grave by pushing Labour into power in Western Australia in one of the largest swings in the state's history.
Hanson's decision to give sitting MPs last preference on her One Nation Party's how-to-vote cards dumped the Liberal-National Coalition and gave Labour leader Geoff Gallop a majority of up to 16 seats.
The result was a message that has been heard clearly in Queensland, which goes to the polls on Saturday, and in Canberra.
With final results yet to be determined, One Nation candidates won up to 20 per cent of the primary vote in key rural seats and the party appears to have regained at least the 10 per cent of the vote it won in the state at the previous federal elections.
It might also gain at least one seat in the state's Upper House.
Growing support for One Nation in Queensland will also hurt the Liberal and National parties most because of rural anger at fuel prices, roads funding, GST red tape and similar issues.
Opinion polls predict the siphoning of support from conservative parties will help return Labour Premier Peter Beattie to power with a comfortable majority, despite rebellion among a group of National candidates who rejected party policy and reached preference deals with Hanson.
Her return follows legal action and mass defections in Queensland, a bitter battle for control of One Nation, and a series of political and personal blows. The comeback has stunned observers and jangled nerves in Canberra.
The issues and discontent that fuelled her rise in 1998 remain a constant source of anger in regional Australia and, in Western Australia, boiled over into a huge swing of preferences that ended Liberal Premier Richard Court's eight-year rule.
"With the preferences being directed largely against our sitting members it's been bang, bang, you're gone," Court said after conceding defeat to an elated Gallop.
Prime Minister John Howard will go to the polls this year facing similar anger and Hanson's promise to direct One Nation preferences away from sitting federal MPs in a repeat of her Western Australia tactics.
Her power base of Queensland is also the state most likely to determine Howard's future.
The Prime Minister said yesterday that the Western Australia result was not a shock, but conceded the Hanson factor - especially in regional seats, where One Nation support had surprised everyone - would be closely analysed in Canberra, .
"I'm never complacent about these things and any Prime Minister who says he ignores state results is not telling the truth," he said.
While it would be a mistake to read the state election as a triumph for Hanson, he would be pushing the message firmly this year that a vote for One Nation was a vote for Labour.
Hanson said Court's defeat was a backlash against Howard and GST, and warned that if major parties did not negotiate with One Nation, the party would again direct preferences away from sitting MPs in the federal election.
"A lot of the political pundits did write One Nation off but they forgot to listen to the people of WA, so it's a clear indication that we weren't written off," she said.
"We were just simmering away."
Born-again Hanson gives warning
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