Pauline Hanson ‘only leader’ of floated coalition with Libs, Nats, One Nation’s newest recruit says

One Nation’s newest recruit says Pauline Hanson is the “only leader” for a floated three-way coalition with the Liberals and Nationals. Senator Hanson and her minor party have surged in the polls in recent months amid collapsing core support for the former Coalition. She said on Wednesday a new coalition between One Nation, the Liberal Party and The Nationals is “the only way to move forward” because none of them could make it to government on their own. “The fact is that I am a conservative at heart, and I want to work with them to give them supply,” she told Sky News. Though, she added: “Would I join up to the rabble that they are at the moment? No way in the wide world.” Former senator Cory Bernardi, who was this week announced as One Nation’s South Australia leader, said on Thursday Liberal leader Sussan Ley and Nationals counterpart David Littleproud would not have what it takes to lead the combined forces. “I think there’s only one leader amongst that lot and it’s Pauline Hanson by a mile,” he told 2GB. “The rest are just followers doing what the machine men of the Liberal and National parties tell them.” He went on to say the “problem with politics today is that the people that are going in there are now wondering what they can get out of it rather than what they can put into it”. “And most of them are actually captive to some lobbyists who profit from their political experience or their political power,” Mr Bernardi said. “And this is, I think, the real decay of political credibility in this country. “And I’m happy to say Pauline Hanson, the One Nation team, we’re just real people who want to get out there and make a real go of it for every Australian.” Asked a short time later about joining forces with One Nation, Mr Littleproud laughed off the idea. “The National Party has been true to our values and principles for over 100 years,” he told Sky News. “That’s been proved in the results of our election results over the last three or four elections that we’ve held on to all our seats and in fact, nearly won a miracle seat in Bendigo with a double digit swing to us when the rest of the Coalition vote was tanking. “So I think what we’ve done over the last four years is make sure we stay true to who we are. “We’ve been able to demonstrate that.” He again defended his colleagues’ decisions to break shadow cabinet solidarity and vote against anti-hate speech laws they argue could infringe on political freedoms. The three senior Nationals that vote against the laws, drafted in the wake of the Bondi terror attack, were booted from shadow cabinet, prompting the remaining Nationals to quit in protest and ultimately leave the Coalition for the second time in a year. Mr Littleproud said principled stances are “what the Australian people are looking for”. “Authenticity that you say what you’re going to do, you stand up for what you say you believe in, and in that moment … you prove it,” he said. “And when we talk about the complexity of the issues, back in January around the hate speech laws, that was about taking away freedom of speech, and we took a principled position where proper process wasn’t afforded to us, we did nothing wrong.”