Weekend Prime Ministerial visit to Maranoa electorate invites questions on One Nation fears

Just as leader Pauline Hanson was given a baby to cuddle at the conclusion of her Politics in the Pub session in Longreach midway through the Burrumbuttock Hay Runners latest visit to the west, so Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was handed an infant to cradle at the Bell show on Saturday, a symbolic example of the similarities people are seeing in the LNP’s activities.

When questioned at Barcaldine on Sunday, Mr Turnbull insisted that as Prime Minister, he was naturally interested in things that happen all round Australia.

“It’s a big country and I’m the Prime Minister,” he said.

“Not so long ago I was in Longreach and Winton and Birdsville.

“It’s a big electorate, at the heart of a big state and it’s important to be here.”

The local member, David Littleproud was a little more belligerent in his response to questioning as to what the inaugural LNP Provincial Policy and Implementation Council, consisting of state and federal MPs and meeting in Bundaberg over the weekend, had come up with to counteract One Nation popularity.

“That was the media. We predicated some time ago about formulating policies for regional and rural Australia, building on the policies we have already,” he said.

“If you want to speculate on any reason apart from that, well, you’re wrong.

“The reality is this was set in stone for some time. We are making sure we are always refining the policies that are actually important to the people in regional and rural Australia and I don’t resile from that, in fact I’m quite proud of that.”

Mr Littleproud has been on the front foot since the Burrumbuttock Hay Runners, with Pauline Hanson in its entourage for the third time, made its latest successful trip through the region.

Ms Hanson’s presence on all three drought relief deliveries – she told the Birdcage Hotel audience in Longreach she was “a bit tired for an old girl”, having been in a road train cab for 13 hours – is hailed by hay run participants as showing real care for people in drought.

At overnight stops she talks about protecting the farming sector or risk a mass loss of expertise and a foreign takeover of land, and more financial assistance for people who’ve lost most of their breeding stock and exhausted financial reserves.

In response, Mr Littleproud said he wondered if Ms Hanson was there for TV cameras or living the hardship day in, day out with communities.

He said his government’s approach, rather than increase welfare, was to build community resilience in the form of money to construct exclusion fences to allow sheep to return and grazing pressure to be managed, and see money circulated around whole communities.

On Sunday he said no-one had a mortgage on coming out into regional Australia and listening to people they were paid to represent.

“We’ll continue to refine our policies to make sure they’re relevant in the context of a modern world,” he said.

People listening to Pauline Hanson speak in an informal pub appearance, with Longreach locals, including mayor Ed Warren, on her “panel”, could have mistaken the gathering for one of the Prime Minister’s at times.

Apart from references to cutting 457 visa holders off welfare, and challenging the government over the defence department land acquisitions, Ms Hanson gave her pub audience ideas that sounded a lot like the LNP’s.

She agreed with the comment that governments had to get behind the Adani mine, for the jobs and money it’s expected to bring, providing there’s no harm to the water table; she was horrified at the cost of electricity and said she was pleased to hear the Prime Minister was looking at a coal-fired power station for north Queensland; and she cited her own experience running a small business in her support for the Fair Work Commission’s ruling on Sunday penalty rates.

She told the drinkers, punters and casual onlookers that debt had to be reined in – “it’s nearly half our budget, and it means there’s no money for infrastructure projects” – and she promised to look at the cost of flights between Longreach and Brisbane if her party got a foothold in Queensland.

The final comment, coming from local Gary Ballard, would have given the ALP as much food for thought as the LNP.

“Bill Shorten blocks everything,” he said. “How can we fix the debt when he does that.”

Ms Hanson was happy to respond, saying it was the politics of the major parties to do that as a matter of principle, regardless of whether legislation was good or not.