Barnaby Joyce at a public meeting, seated at a table with a nameplate, as he interacts with the audience in the background.
Barnaby Joyce addresses a NSW government committee investigating wind farms.

CAIRNS News editors are acutely aware of the history of Pauline Hanson and One Nation.

We have no doubts about Hanson’s nationalistic commitment to Australia in this age of globalisation. Her name is also synonymous with One Nation.

But we also know how Hanson operates and it has not always been in the best interests of the One Nation political party and its objectives.

Now with Barnaby Joyce entertaining the idea of jumping ship from the Nationals, Hanson needs to seriously reassess her domination of the party.

Joyce’s father-in-law Peter Campion, identified the problem in much more blunt terms for Cairns News: “The problem with merging into One Nation will be Pauline’s ego; if she can keep it in check there is a path to success.”

The reality is, that despite her unquestionable commitment to the cause, Hanson is not the best person to elucidate a nationalist, populist message at this time in history.

Malcolm Roberts, Barnaby Joyce or Matt Canavan would be better candidates. Joyce and Canavan have already been sending out coherent messages on the same page as One Nation and are gaining public support.

The problem for the Nationals is their Coalition partner the Liberal Party. There are some conservative-nationalist Liberal voices in that party but at least half of the party – and most certainly the backroom deal-makers – are wannabe Teals, traditionally known at “the wets” or small-L Liberals.

Led by Sussan Ley, this dominant group sees itself as “centrist” and pragmatic. They see that more than a third of Australians voted for Labor and large numbers in some previously safe Liberal urban seats went to Teals.

Their solution is to be more like Teals. As Ley told the Canberra Press Club, they’re about representing “modern (read progressive) Australia” and striving for net zero is not such a bad thing after all – even if our grass roots members are voting against it!

This “Tealy” Liberal Party is of course acceptable to Labor, the Greens, the Canberra press gallery and the entrenched bureaucracy as a “responsible opposition”.

But Ley and her supporters are not discerning the worldwide rise of nationalistic, anti-globalist populism, especially in Europe and Trump’s America. They are effectively siding with Ursula Von Leyen’s EU establishment.

Senator Hanson is simply not an effective communicator of these political/philosophical arguments. Senator Roberts certainly is, but he plays second fiddle to his boss.

Hanson is often given a voice by the sympathetic Sky News team, but her messaging, while not lacking in passion, is not terribly articulate and lacks the coherence and depth of someone like Roberts, Joyce or Canavan.

If Hanson and her long-time adviser James Ashby have the humility recognise this, she should stand aside as the One Nation leader and hand the reigns to Roberts or even Joyce if he defects.

Joyce has the long-term experience in Canberra in negotiating mainstream politics. He has always had a populist edge, but the disastrous path being taken by Albanese and Labor has pushed him further into the anti-progressive camp.

Joyce’s defection to One Nation could a major breath of life to the party, and possibly open the door to other defections – in the process building the party as a major third force in Australian politics.

Hanson could then continue as the traditional face of One Nation. She is undoubtedly popular out in public at the grassroots level, although probably not to the degree of a decade or two ago.

Joyce, as we know, has announced he will not recontest his seat of New England at the next election and says his relationship with the current Nationals leadership has, “like a sadness in some marriages”, irreparably broken down.

During the last federal election Joyce was told by his party not to campaign outside New England as that did not represent the views of the Nationals, then after the election was moved on for ‘generational change’.

“And just the atmospherics in the party room, where I am seated in the far corner of the Coalition in the chamber, means I am seen and now turning into a discordant note. That is not who I want to be,” a statement released by Joyce said.

“More importantly our position in continuing to support net zero with the massive schism and hurt to my electorate, to small businesses, to the environment, to the poor, to the defence of Australia and creating hate between lifelong friends in my community makes continuing in the Nationals’ Party Room in Canberra under this policy untenable.”

Mr Joyce said he was considering his next step, which did not rule out running for One Nation in the Senate.

Hanson told the ABC she had not spoken to Mr Joyce since the announcement, but the pair had previously discussed the future of One Nation and that she thought he was an effective politician. “We’re on the same page,” she said.

Hanson and Ashby have a great opportunity offering, but they need to seriously consider their own positions and give potential Nationals defectors like Joyce the respect and position they deserve.

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