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“Australia’s undergone a transformation,” declared One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce during an interview with ABC this evening, speaking from a celebration event in a southern New South Wales constituency.
“There’s likely to be quite an uproar in Canberra right now,” he added.
David Farley of One Nation was ahead in the two-candidate preferred count, leading independent candidate Michelle Milthorpe by approximately 60 percent to 40 percent. With no Labor candidate in the race and a significant protest vote against the Liberals, Farley remarked that this marked the dawn of a new chapter for One Nation.
“We have concluded the initial phase for One Nation and are poised to break new ground,” Farley stated confidently.
Joyce, who previously served as deputy prime minister and led the National Party, described his switch to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation as a path that many from the Nationals, Liberals, and Labor have taken and will continue to take after him.
His joining of One Nation is being seen as key for the party to reach more voters, and he said he expected the result in Farrer to be replicated in other parts of the country.
“The Australian people are not dumb,” he told the ABC.
“What you saw tonight was not just a result for Farrer, it’s a result for Australia … and what we see is the Australian people saying I’m over this, I’m going to change things around, completely change the batting order, and they did it tonight.”
Joyce lashed his former Coalition colleague Angus Taylor, whose success in the Liberal Party leadership spill in February led to the Farrer byelection when his predecessor Sussan Ley quit politics.
The result for the Liberals tonight was catastrophic, attracting about 12 per cent of the vote in a seat that has only ever been held by the Liberal or National parties in its 77-year history.
Taylor blamed divisions within the Coalition as turning voters off.
“For too long we have been a party of convenience, not of conviction, and that must change,” he said.
“Over the last year or so the Coalition hasn’t done what it should do: been united and stable and strong, with two breakups of the Coalition over that time.
Ley, who held the seat for 25 years, released a statement tonight as a warning to Taylor.
“I urge the Liberal leadership to accept this result with humility because the voters never get it wrong,” she said.
“On the day the leadership spilled in February, the new leader said the Liberal Party needed to ‘change or die’.
“Three months later, the result in Farrer demonstrates that statement to be far truer today than it ever was.”
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