Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume has ruled out a preference deal with One Nation despite party leader Angus Taylor and president Tony Abbott keeping the door open to an agreement with the minor party earlier this week.
Asked whether the Coalition would preference One Nation, meaning place them above other parties on how to vote cards at an election, Hume said: “No, that’s not on the cards.”
“An election is now 18 months to two years away. To begin with, we never, ever talk about preferences before an election is actually called because you don’t know what policies they have, you don’t know what candidates they have, you don’t know what One Nation are going to be doing in two years’ time,” Hume told Seven’s Sunrise.
Asked about Abbott’s openness to the proposal, Hume said: “Angus Taylor said yesterday, we are not carving up seats, we are not talking about preferences.”
Yesterday, Taylor ruled out carving up seats with One Nation after frontbencher Tony Pasin suggested that the parties should make a deal so they would not run against each other, effectively giving up on winning swaths of seats.
But asked about preferences on Tuesday, Taylor said he would “work with others to get rid of this rotten Labor government”.
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