Western Australian Liberal Party

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[upbeat music] One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is resisting calls from across the political spectrum to take down a satirical cartoon that calls Liberal MP and Army veteran Andrew Hastie a traitor.

The former Special Air Service captain gave evidence for the defense in the defamation case brought by another SAF Afghanistan veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith.

Senator Hanson insists the cartoon is a joke, but her fellow parliamentarians aren't finding it so funny.

reports.If there's one thing that will unite politicians, it's defending Australia's veterans.

Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie served as a corporal in the Australian Army.

She's furious at a One Nation cartoon labeling Liberal MP Andrew Hastie a traitor.

Attacking Andrew Hastie, a veteran that has served in our Afghanistan war, or any other veteran, is the lowest ebb you can possibly do.

Forget about what One Nation is doing and concentrate on what the Liberal Party should be doing to get its base back and to get its primary vote up.

And I think that he, along with a lot of others, were extremely unhappy and very angry with the way the WA Liberals conducted their campaign in Secret Harbour where the leader said it doesn't matter whether One Nation wins so long as Labor loses.

And that, according to Hastie and also according to Jono, was raising the white flag.

And if you're going to do that, you're never going to win.

but that's the threshold decision, right?

OK, he wins the pre-selection.

For argument's sake, the idea that the Kuyong Liberals have so soured on him that they won't give him the pre-selection is...

Sure.

And I think what you've got at the moment is you've got a disruption system in our politics.

But Labor in WA has been holding all the power, and the Liberals haven't managed to pitch a big vision of what they're about.

if you put a as they had One Nation puts a local person who works in a business a gym no less in a working-class area full of tradies who all have their own businesses like he does and who see him in the street at his business you're on a hiding to nothing if you put forward someone who's who seems like they're a party machine person if from any party at the moment local issues are actually settling some of these debates.

And whatever you say about what One Nation holds its position on bigger issues, this was very much a, we're just sick of being told, here's your medicine, take what's good for you from above.

They're trying to rescue some things here, but what's it saying about Liberal support in WA?

Well, I don't think Labor were the big losers.

I think the Liberals are the big losers because Labor may have lost the battle but I think Liberal is losing the war because they are not clear what they stand for.

They don't have a way of reclaiming a strong centre and I think the Liberal Party nationally is pitching its survival on some sort of recurrence of 1996, that Australia is a certain way and that if you hold a middle line on everything, it'll sort out.

Labor won 61.5% of the vote on two-party preferred basis.

So the nearest rival at that point was the Liberals, and they had 38.5% two-party preferred.

Even with the massive, uh, Labor win, there was still almost a 20% swing against Labor, and that went towards the Liberals.

So that's to give you an idea, 18 months, about 18 months.

And then you look at what happened on the weekend, and One Nation emerged with 57% of the vote on a two-party preferred basis, and that compared to Labor's 43%.

I mean, Labor don't forget are aiming for a fourth term here in Western Australia, and we all know that people get tired of government, tired of seeing the same people, tired of hearing the same messages.

So they've got that issue, trying to get a fourth term.

But, you know, this is a, a Labor government off the back of, uh, Mark McGowan's popularity and the pandemic and, uh, the amount of votes that he got through that, um, that have forty-five members in the Lower House of Parliament here, compared to the Liberals and Nationals with twelve.

And donations of $2 or more are tax deductible as well.

Ha! Labor and the Liberals left to lick their wounds as Pauline Hanson's party puts more seats on notice on Triple G.

One Nation leaders, supporters have been celebrating a big win over the weekend that you might have heard something about.

a state by-election in a safe Labor seat in Western Australia.

I think One Nation is a party that does not represent mainstream Australia.

But this result wasn't just a message for the Labor Party.

The Liberals' primary vote also fell, dropping about 8%.

Leading into the election, WA Liberal leader Basil Zempler said clash with federal counterparts over a preference deal with One Nation.