Thirty years on, the Coalition has no idea what to do about One Nation

It has been almost 30 years since the founding of One Nation, and the Coalition parties still haven’t worked out how to deal with it.

When One Nation is on 6 per cent or thereabouts, that isn’t a major problem. However, since February 10 when YouGov put One Nation ahead of the Coalition by 28 per cent to 19 per cent, it has been a huge one.

The confusion is obvious in Angus Taylor’s twists and turns, and those of his lieutenants.

In early June, after Tony Abbott said parties of the right should preference one another, Taylor said he was prepared to ‘work with others to get rid of a rotten Labor government’, implicitly accepting the proposition.

A day later, Tony Pasin, the member for Barker, a seat potentially vulnerable to One Nation, suggested a non-aggression pact under which the two blocs would divide up the seats they contested.

‘No, there’s no plan to carve up seats. We won’t be doing that,’ was Taylor’s response. But he did not rule out exchanging preferences.

By late June, One Nation was ‘incapable of governing’, according to Taylor. He had turned his guns on his enemy’s enemy. Then, on July 9, in a speech to the Sydney Institute, came fiercer fire: One Nation would ‘send us broke’.

On July 14, Taylor ruled out a formal coalition. Then, on Monday this week, 13 days later, Andrew Bragg told ABC News: ‘We’ll work out preferences before the next election…’ And, ‘If there needs to be a coalition, we’ll work it out then…’

Okay. Who’s in charge?

Taylor tried to tidy this up, saying: ‘There will be no coalition with One Nation. Our coalition is with the National Party…’ Although he made no mention of preferences, much of the media bundled the two questions together and reported his position as no coalition and no preference deal.

Preferences and coalitions shouldn’t even be subjects of discussion with two years still to run before the next election.

They distract from the business of holding the government to account. From the Coalition’s point of view, they also give One Nation more prominence, validating it as a rival and lifting its vote, while poisoning the Coalition’s appeal in inner-urban seats.