POLITICAL ROCKSTAR: The Best Of or One Hit Wonder

The polls are showing more than a growing interest in Hanson. It seems she's a rock star for those desperate for something other than the two major parties.

Will it last or will something change, turning this disruptor into another has been?

A Conversation with Greg Cheesman

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

And you're listening to the show related show where curiosity meets courage. And for Australians, we had the by-election in FARA over the weekend, and it was quite a fascinating outcome with One Nation securing that spot. And it's a bit of a suggestion that this is an example of more to come when our federal election comes up in the next couple of years. Speaking to us about this is Greg Cheesman. He's a Victorian representative of One Nation and likely candidate with the Victorian election coming up in November. Greg, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Sure, good morning, lovely to be on, and good morning to your listeners.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Thank you very much. Greg, are you surprised by the outcome?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

No, not at all. What we've seen over the last two weekends, we've had by-elections. We had uh on the 2nd of May, we had uh the Napian by-election here in Victoria. And the Saturday after, so the one just gone, we had the the Farrah by-election there. And what we saw in both was the polls are pretty much spot on. We saw in Napian uh we're expecting to get 25% of the primary vote, and we got just a little over 25% of the primary vote. So that tells us the polls are doing their jobs. And in Farrah, we're expecting a pretty resounding win, and all the polls were suggesting it, all the media was behind us suggesting it, and um we ended up with a very, very solid win. So not surprised at all, but very happy with the results.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Now, Paul Ann Hansen must be very, very pleased, number one. Number two, she would be very busy trying to work out what that means for her party in the long term. We know that she's in her uh mid to late 70s, and she'll be wanting to hand the baton over at some stage. How is the party preparing for not just Victoria but for the future?

SPEAKER_01 2:20

So, what we've seen is the party is bigger than Paul Anne Hanson. Yes, she is our superstar, absolutely. Everywhere she goes, she gets a rock star welcome. Uh, the media follow her around, she gets a lot of attention. Whilst that's happening, there's a lot of work being done on the ground, building the party in the various states and federally as well, and having that celebrity and that powerhouse underpinned by high-quality candidates, good policies, and more importantly than anything else for a political party, good governance, so we know our house is in order.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Now, in terms of your house being in order, there have been some conversations regarding the lack of detail of policy. Is it standard practice that parties don't announce their policies until closer to the election or is it a disadvantage?

SPEAKER_01 3:18

No, what you see time and again for elections is parties will typically hold their cards close to their chests. They might come out with a couple of big statements early on, but they don't give you a lot of detail until you're getting closer to the election. There's there's a couple of reasons for this, and all parties will do this. The less detail you have out, so you might just go aheadline is that, then the less there is to attack or copy from your competitors. And we've already seen uh the the Federal Liberal Party uh switching tact in the last couple of weeks since their change of leader, and uh they're now where they were accused of being Labour-white are looking more like one nation white. So they've jumped on the One Nation bandwagon and started to follow our lead. Uh likewise, if you go out too early with your your policies, let's say the Victorian policies, and we went out hard, here's all our policies now. Where are we? We're in May, and we have a state election in November. What are you going to be talking about closer to the election when you've already spoken about in debt with all of your policies, all of your costings, everyone knows how it's going to work? What do you have that's new that you'll bring to the table at a time where people are starting to switch on and listen? So it's a it's a bit of a balancing act between yes, we want to get policies and candidates out early, but then when is the right time? Do we hold them back until people start listening? So that that is the challenge for all political parties, and we're all on the same boat as far as that's concerned.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Indeed. Now I've got a question from one of our listeners, and that is why should we trust one nation when they're going to be involved in the preferential voting system?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Well, I don't have a choice to be involved in a preferential voting system. But the first thing you need to remember is the preferences are yours as the voter. These are your preferences. How to vote cards are a a guide as to what each party would recommend if their candidate wasn't successful, where would they prefer your preferences to flow to? You don't have to follow that. You can pick whatever you like. When we look at the group voting ticket, which we're hopeful will disappear before this election, but there's a equal chance that it may or may not. Whatever you do, don't vote above the line because you will lose control of your preferences and you've got no idea where it goes. And there are parties that are involved in preference trading where you might vote for a party that you think might be a conservative, right-leaning, libertarian, potential party, and you end up your vote ends up going to a communist style party. So for transparency, vote below the line and you know exactly where your vote is going. Educate yourself on how to vote. Don't just rock up on the day and think you know how to do it, because you probably don't. And make sure you get it right so that your vote counts.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

So for our listener there that uh asked that question, yes, make sure your vote counts and be educated on what the voting system looks like currently and how to do so. Below the line is key, Mike, uh what you've just said there, Greg.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Always, always below the line. Do not trust your vote to anybody, your preferences, because you just don't know where it's going to be directly. What I can say, just further on that, is there are the vast majority of minor parties and the majors, I'll say, I'm gonna go that far, are involved in preference whispering, is what it's called, where money is traded for a preferential chance or a preferred chance of getting candidates elected. One nation does not involve itself in that. I can't stress that enough. We do not involve ourselves in preference whispering whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

So this preference whispering and this exchange of money for a vote, it couldn't be more corrupt if you tried. So what you're what you're basically saying is that we have a corrupt political voting system, therefore we have corrupt political parties. Do you think Australia's waking up to this?

SPEAKER_01 8:06

I think there's certain people that are becoming more and more aware of how the group voting ticket works. I think that's why we are seeing more calls from certain sectors and they are more grassroots sectors of people saying this has to go. Uh, if you were to take the time to read the Electoral Matters Committee's report that was handed down in December last year, uh, of which I mentioned seven times in there for my submissions and my views on the group voting ticket, amongst other things, uh, you will see how votes have been tweaded and how the system's been corrupted, where politicians get elected on very small margins. Uh we've had in the past uh less than one percent, and there's two that I can name, I'll I'll refrain from this morning for the sake of time, but we've had uh politicians on 0.8 and even 0.6% of the primary vote. So over 99% of the electorate have said no, thank you, we don't want you, and yet there they are making decisions, very important decisions, for all Victorians. If the system's wrong, the system's corrupt, it needs to be changed, and we need to do it now. Victoria is the only state in the country that's hanging on to this terrible group voting ticket, and it must go.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

So this terrible group voting ticket is only in Victoria. Are you saying the rest of the country's not corrupt?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

I'm saying the rest of the country does not use the group voting ticket.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Right, okay. So for Victorians, we've got the Victorian election coming up in November. We're going to have a corrupt election, and therefore nothing's going to change.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

I don't know whether when we're talking about a corrupt system, we're talking about the group the group voting ticket, that the flow of preferences has been corrupted. This is what I'm saying. I've got to be careful what I'm saying here because there is, you know, lawyers circling. The flow of preferences has been corrupted because people can buy their way in. That's what I'm talking about there.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Right. So buying your way into a position and then once you're in a position, if you happen to be with a major party, you continue to uh earn an income from the people while you're campaigning for your next buy-in for the next election. It's not necessarily independent as well. Yeah, it's crazy stuff. Oh, true, indeed. Yeah, that may well be as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

And and you're right, you're touching on a very interesting point there. When once you're a member of Parliament and the Parliament goes into caretaker mode when an election's been called and the writs have been issued, then you still are paid as a member of Parliament.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And that shouldn't be the case.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Well, I don't think it should be, because what work are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Well, that's right. That's right, and we haven't touched on we need to before we finish up that and it nicely takes us to the Faro election. Um I can't believe that the number of politicians that were involved in that by-election, and again, they're paid to serve the people, but they're flying all over the place to rally around the the troops to get their member elected. Surely, and that's a again, that's on on Australians' money, the Australians' purse.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Well, it's it's over to the individual uh members of parliament as to how they fund their travel, and we hope that if it is uh taxpayer funded, it's declared that's all above board. That's what we hope. Uh whether that's the case, where well history will be the judge. Uh what we do know is we had everybody against us. We had Get Up raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and stop one nation winning a seat. We had the Labour Party, although they weren't running a candidate for fear of it being a running commentary on the today's government. Although I don't know why they need that. I know everyone hates them. Uh just look at the polls. Uh, they had them campaigning. Uh the teal candidate had Climate 200 throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars at her, although she was ignoring the fact that she was actually a teal and denying it, which was bizarre. Uh, so she was Labor's proxy candidate. We had the Liberal Party and the Nationals, although they preferenced One Nation, were campaigning in a very, very aggressive and and some would say a dirty manner uh against One Nation. So we had absolutely everybody against us, but the will of the people came through, and that's the beautiful thing about our democracy that when the people decide, and they decide in a very strong manner that they need some change, it comes through and wins.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Okay, so just on that to wrap this conversation up, was there any conversation in the background? Because it certainly wasn't uh in the the media regarding this very critical seat of Farah and the historical context and fact that the border between New South Wales and Victoria was to be the Murrumbidgee River and it is the Murray River. So there is there was shenanigans that were going on that f impacted landowners, and that needs to still come to the fore. Do you know anything about that?

SPEAKER_01 13:43

No, I have nothing to to do about those conversations, if in fact they happen. What I do know is that Michelle Millthorpe, who is the teal, uh this this is how grubby things get, and they do anything they can to muddy the waters. She had all her volunteers out in orange t-shirts. Now, if you if you go up to the average person in the street who's not politically engaged, and you said which political party is represented by orange, I would say the vast majority of them would say, Well, orange is one nation. So there we go, we've got we've got the teal and and the other front runner, if you like, in the same color t-shirt as one nation, trying to confuse voters to take their how-to-vote card and follow it. Um, assuming they're that stupid that uh they might want to vote for one nation, but they'll take the wrong how to vote and vote by mistake.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Well, there we go. They will do anything possible to try to wipe out someone who has clearly got a major advantage in popularity in Australia at the moment. That's Pauline Hansen with the One Nation Party. So lots more to focus on, Greg, and always good to have you back in a very brief overview of what's happened in the last week. Thanks for being on the show.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Absolutely it's a fantastic to be on. Thanks, Cheryl. We'll talk to you next time.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Okay, thank you, bye. Okay, so Greg Cheesman from One Nation here in Victoria talking about the Faro election briefly, but also the way in which political parties and independents play the game when it comes to election time. So keep an eye out, continue to learn, make sure you understand how our voting system operates, and therefore, hopefully, we might get some sort of cleaner election till we have regime change. You're listening to the Cheryl Acey show where A where curiosity meets courage.