The Liberals Just Made An Unprecedented Preference Deal With One Nation

Western Australian politics just got real bloody interesting/horrifying, after the Liberal Party confirmed that it will preference One Nation ahead of the Nationals at next month’s state election.

According to Perth’s Sunday Times, the arrangement will see the Liberals preference One Nation ahead of the Nationals in regional seats in the Upper House. In return, One Nation will preference the Liberals ahead of Labor in the Lower House.

The controversial deal, which has since been confirmed by the ABC, could be enough to help clinch the election for incumbent Liberal Premier Colin Barnett, at the cost of handing One Nation the balance of power.

However The Sunday Times is also reporting that some National MPs “were so incensed by the Liberals’ preference deal that they believed the [Liberal-National] alliance should be broken.”

At a federal level, the Turnbull government has defended the deal, with Senator Arthur Sinodinos declaring that the resurgent One Nation is more “sophisticated” than it was the first time around.

“The One Nation of today is a very different beast to what it was 20 years ago,” he told the ABC.

Look how far they’ve come!

Senator Sinodinos stressed that the One Nation deal was “a state decision, not a federal decision” and said that “our job is to treat them as any other party. That doesn’t mean we have to agree with their policies.”

Whatever helps you sleep at night, mate.