One Nation Unveils Victorian Election Candidates, Denies ABC and Guardian Access

A former Liberal party candidate, the animator behind Pauline Hanson’s anti-woke film and a local councillor who says he worked on former premier Daniel Andrews’ personal protection team have been unveiled as One Nation candidates for the Victorian election.

Pauline Hanson held a press conference on Monday to announce the eight candidates who will lead One Nation’s upper house tickets at the November state election.

Reporters from the ABC, the Age and the Guardian were not provided with the time or location of the press conference. Asked whether all media should have access to a press conference in a democracy, particularly given her ambition to form government at the November state election, Hanson responded: “Democracy doesn’t happen on the ABC at all.”

She claimed it was not the first time she had denied ABC access to her events, having done so in 1996 “for eight months” and added, “the same will go with the Guardian”.

“I’m not putting up with the spin, gotcha moments. wanting to have a go at me ... [and] treat us totally different to what you do, the other major political parties. Enough is enough,” she said.

In a later follow up question, another reporter asked: “Aren’t you cutting off your nose to spite your face here? Don’t you need your message to get out to regional Victoria in particular, and you need the ABC, the national broadcaster to be able to carry it?”

To which Hanson responded: “We’ve got Rebel News here, I am happy with them.”

Rebel News Australia is run by Avi Yemini, a former Israeli soldier and self-styled investigative journalist.

Hanson announced Warren Pickering, One Nation’s Victorian president, will lead the party’s campaign and run as its candidate for the eastern Victoria region.

Pickering ran One Nation’s campaign in the 2022 election, where it won 0.22% of first-preference votes in the lower house and 2% in the upper house.He also unsuccessfully contested a Victorian Senate seat for One Nation at last year’s federal election.

But since then the party has surged in the polls, with latest figures showing between 19-27% of Victorians are considering a vote for One Nation.

Colleen Harkin, a former member of the Liberal party’s administrative committee, will contest the South-Eastern Metropolitan region. Harkin quit the Liberal party in June to join One Nation.

Harkin, who is the director of education at the conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, was a vocal supporter of Moira Deeming and led a supreme court challenge against the Liberals’ decision to grant John Pesutto a $1.55m loan after he lost a defamation case against the MP.

She drew controversy during the 2022 federal election campaign as the Liberal candidate for Macnamara when she said describing global warming as a climate emergency was “almost” child abuse. She also sought Liberal preselection for the neighbouring seat of Goldstein in 2024 but lost to Tim Wilson.

Mark Nicholson, co-founder of animation house Stepmates Studios - which creates Hanson’s cartoon web series Please Explain and her satirical, anti-woke movie – will stand in the northern metropolitan region, while Geelong councillor and former police officer, Chris Burson, will contest western Victoria.

Burson, who also has served with the Australian Defence Force, ran unsuccessfully for the Angry Victorians Party at the 2022 state election and the Australian Values Party at the 2022 federal election.

He told a podcast in June he worked with the close personal protection team guarding Andrews and his wife Catherine as the former premier faced increased threats during the pandemic.

“We’d be sitting there kitted up, ready to go in case there was an attack. You’d have your guns ready, you were in your vest,” Burson said. “You’d be like, ‘how do we have six [counter-terrorism officers] looking after him and two people looking after the city of Melbourne?”

One Nation’s only current MP, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, will seek re-election in Northern Victoria, while human resources manager Fiona Lopez, lawyer Aaron Sandford and volunteer Natalie Adams will head the party’s tickets in the remaining three upper house regions.

The announcement comes after new Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, introduced legislation to parliament last week that will scrap group voting tickets. The change means if One Nation maintains its current polling, these candidates are the party’s most likely prospects to win seats.

But in a statement Hanson said party will be fielding candidates in every seat at the election.

“We’ll have a talented team of people intent on restoring Victoria and kicking out the tired and toxic Labor government which has run this state into the ground, getting away with it thanks to a weak Liberal opposition,” she said.