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The Victorian Liberals are planning to preference One Nation ahead of Labor as a default position at the November state election, in a move former premier Steve Bracks warns will legitimise support for Pauline Hanson’s party and hasten the collapse of the traditional centre-right party.
Although a final decision on preferences will be made on a seat-by-seat basis by the Liberal Party’s five-person state strategy committee once nominations close, two sources with knowledge of the committee’s thinking said that, in the absence of a particularly odious candidate or other exceptional circumstances, One Nation would be favoured ahead of Labor.
The preference strategy, while designed to galvanise the anti-Labor vote across the state, risks a backlash among Liberal voters in what remains of the party’s urban and middle-suburb heartland, and energising the teal movement.
While it may contribute to Labor losing seats to One Nation in electorates such as Melton and Cranbourne, it makes more precarious its hold on John Pesutto’s seat of Hawthorn, Jess Wilson’s seat of Kew and Amelia Hamer’s chances in Malvern.
The November 28 state election is the first in Victoria where One Nation is expected to have a significant impact on the result. Bracks, who came to power shortly after Hanson emerged as a national political force, condemned any preference deal with her party.
“All that will do is legitimise One Nation and that is outrageous,” he told the Sorrento Writers’ Festival last week.
He argues that the Liberal Party in Australia faces the same fate as the Republic Party in France and other centre-right parties disappearing around the world if it continues to drift to the right. “It will be the beginning of the end of the centre-right party in this country,” he said.
In further comments to this masthead, Bracks said the Liberal Party’s instinct to appease One Nation and its followers was fuelling an existential threat.
“They’re saying to people it is OK to vote for One Nation, we are supporting them too. That is a problem and that will tell on the Liberal Party.
“Deep down, the Liberal Party is not racist. But why are they preferencing One Nation if they are not racist? This is the conundrum they have got to work out for themselves.”
A Liberal Party spokesman said no decision on preferences had been made.
“The state campaign strategy committee has not once discussed One Nation preferences for the state election,” they said.
“No decision, in-principle or otherwise, has been made about preferencing any party.”
The Liberal Party’s how-to-vote cards being handed out in Nepean at pre-polling centres for Saturday’s byelection foreshadow the party’s likely approach in November.
Although One Nation’s Darren Hercus is considered Liberal candidate Anthony Marsh’s primary rival in the absence of a Labor candidate, the Liberals are preferencing One Nation third on the ballot ahead of local independent Tracee Hutchison. One Nation is also directing preferences to the Liberal Party ahead of Hutchison.
Neither Liberal nor One Nation preferences will flow in Nepean if the parties finish as expected in first and second position on primary votes. One Liberal MP, who is unauthorised to discuss internal party matters, described the preference decisions as a “show of good faith” between the parties in the lead-up to the November poll.
The Liberal Party’s attempt to retain Nepean following the resignation of local MP Sam Groth is being complicated by disquiet in local party circles about Marsh’s selection as their candidate. Estranged Liberal members last week paid for a full-page advertisement in the local paper, the Southern Peninsula News, urging voters to spurn Marsh.
Richard Doery, an 83-year-old local Liberal branch member, said he voted for Hutchison due to concerns about Marsh’s candidacy, which was endorsed by local and central party office holders rather than a ballot of members.
“The fundamental concern is that the Liberal Party decided not to allow the local members to vote for and select a candidate,” Doery said. He added that he was “very uncomfortable with preferencing One Nation”.
Marsh, a Mornington Peninsula Shire Mayor currently on leave from council, who lives in Mount Martha just outside the Nepean electorate, says the dominant factor in the byelection is frustration at a long-term Labor government. Hutchison agrees but says concerns about Marsh are also biting.
“We’ve actually had a lot of support from long-term Liberal party members and voters who have been dismayed by the pre-selection process and being shut out of that and genuinely wanting someone who will represent the Nepean electorate, who lives in the electorate, who will be voting in the byelection,” she said.
“Some of that motivation is coming from long-term Liberals, but it’s also coming from a whole range of people who are looking for somewhere to park their vote.”
Nepean is One Nation’s first significant electoral test in Victoria since opinion polls started detecting a surge in popular support for the party at the end of last year.
It follows the South Australian state election where One Nation cannibalised the Liberal Party’s primary vote and reduce its representation from 16 seats to just five, and comes ahead of the federal byelection in Farrer, where the Liberal and National parties are preferencing One Nation ahead of independent Michelle Milthorpe.
While Bracks argues that One Nation does not present an immediate threat to Labor in Victoria, former ALP state deputy director turned pollster Kos Samaras believes that One Nation will take seats from both major parties in November.
Samaras said that Opposition Leader Jess Wilson, who is a member of her party’s state strategy committee that will decide preferences, was facing the same conundrum as Liberal leaders around the country.
“The Liberal Party in Victoria cannot win the election unless they are winning seats in middle and inner-urban Melbourne. That is also the place where you will find the most anti-One Nation sentiment,” he said.
“What does Jess do? If she doesn’t preference One Nation she animates her right flank. If she preferences One Nation she collapses the small-c conservative vote in urban Melbourne. She has got herself caught in this vice.”
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