One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has announced her party’s latest high-profile recruit as the minor party records a sharp rise in voter support.
Former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi will lead One Nation in South Australia, heading the party’s legislative team at next month’s state election.
“Cory has strong, sound conservative values that are an excellent fit with One Nation,” Hanson said late on Monday.
“He’s a prominent South Australian keen to make the positive differences in his home state the Liberals just can’t bring themselves to make.”
Bernadi served as a Liberal senator for South Australia from 2006 to 2017. He resigned from the party in 2017 to establish the Australian Conservatives, which disbanded two years later.
He stepped away from politics in 2020 and later worked as a political commentator, hosting a program on Sky News until 2023.
His return to frontline politics follows the recent defection of former Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce and coincides with a significant lift in One Nation’s polling figures.
A RedBridge poll shows 26 per cent of Australians would give One Nation their first preference if an election were held on Monday, representing a nine-point increase.
Support for the Liberal and National parties fell to a combined 19 per cent, down seven percentage points from December, while Labor led the poll with 34 per cent of the primary vote.
Hanson recorded the highest favourability rating in the poll, with 38 per cent of respondents viewing her positively, compared with 34 per cent for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The polling comes as Nationals leader David Littleproud faces growing internal pressure to reunite with the Liberals, following a failed leadership challenge.
Littleproud, who has vowed that no Nationals MPs would serve in a shadow cabinet under Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, is being urged to restore the Coalition nearly two weeks after its latest split.
Littleproud and Ley met on Monday night ahead of parliament’s return, marking their first formal talks on a possible reconciliation.
Deputy Nationals leader Kevin Hogan described the meeting as “really good, civil, co-operative and friendly”.
“There is a will within our room, the Nationals and obviously the Liberal party room, that we want to be a Coalition again at some time in the future,” he told ABC’s 7.30.
“We have some issues to deal with, and we, in good faith, are trying to nut them out right now.”
Hogan said it was unlikely the two parties would face the first Question Time of the year together.
Littleproud has blamed Ley for the breakdown after she accepted the resignations of three Nationals senators who breached shadow cabinet solidarity by voting against an agreed position on hate crimes legislation.
Hogan said the issue remained unresolved, with no agreement reached on reinstating the trio.
On shadow cabinet rules, Hogan said the matter had been fully discussed and that the Liberals had proposed several options.
“We’re going to take some of those ideas to our party room too, so that we can agree with some of the guardrails of how they want it to operate going forward,” he said.
Earlier on Monday, Queensland backbencher Colin Boyce failed to secure enough support at a Nationals party room meeting to trigger a formal leadership spill.
Boyce said the party needed to reunify to reform the Coalition, while a majority of MPs supported a separate motion introduced by Victorian MP Darren Chester to reinstate the political alliance.
Ley is also expected to face a leadership challenge within the Liberal Party later this month by Angus Taylor.
Both the Nationals and Liberals have expressed alarm as polling continues to show One Nation overtaking the Coalition in voter support.
Ley had previously given the Nationals a one-week deadline to return to the Coalition.
The Liberals have indicated they will expand their shadow cabinet if no agreement is reached by next Monday, assuming former Nationals frontbench responsibilities.
The Nationals party room is due to meet again on Tuesday, ahead of parliament sitting at midday AEDT.
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