Pauline Hanson‘s One Nation has passed over its only Western Australian representative, former Labor MP Ben Dawkins, for the upper house party ticket
Mr Dawkins, the pro-freedom Member of the Legislative Council for the South West, has been an outspoken opponent of far-left gender ideology, Covid tyranny, mass immigration, wind farms and domestic violence since joining the party in February.
But One Nation WA leader Rod Caddies revealed on Thursday that he had not selected Mr Dawkins for the party ticket.
“I’ll be the one responsible for who is on the ticket,” Mr Caddies told The West Australian.
“I’m the leader of the party, and, you know, I’m a very harsh judge, and I expect people to judge me in the same way.”
Mr Dawkins said he supported Mr Caddies and would stay with One Nation, adding that losing preselection was “the way things go” in politics.
“I’m staying with the party, and convinced that One Nation is the right party to win votes off the major parties and sit on the conservative side and address some of the lunatic things that are happening with the state and federal Labor governments,” he said.
Mr Dawkins joined One Nation after being suspended from the Labor Party when he was charged with breaching a violence restraining order by replying to emails from his ex-wife which a magistrate found contained no actual violence or threat of violence.
He was also critical of Labor’s human rights-violating Covid vaccine mandates.
It comes after One Nation parted ways with national campaign manager Craig Kelly, a former Liberal MP who also focused on mass immigration during his time in the role.
Mr Kelly told Chris Smith on ADH TV that he had tried and failed to reunite the party with former candidates and create relationships with other smaller parties, but had not been successful.
“I tried with national conferences, I tried with public rallies. You know, I tried a lot of new things, trying to get some of the old candidates that were disenchanted back into the fold. But, you know, they didn’t want to do it that way. So, unfortunately, we’ve had a separating of the ways,” he said.
One Nation’s federal election primary vote is sitting at 7%, according to the latest Newspoll.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to make clear that Mr Dawkins was not dropped from the party ticket – he was not selected.
