One Nation leader gave no straight answers, and yet walked away unscathed

Detailed summary

One Nation Victoria leader Warren Pickering fronted journalists yesterday at the Melbourne Press Club. He evaded straight answers — but will voters care? The post One Nation…

On a sun-drenched Melbourne afternoon yesterday in Crown Casino’s River Room, as the interlocutors preparing to interview him sat anxiously in wait, One Nation’s Victorian leader Warren Pickering delivered a 20-minute sermon detailing the party’s Victorian policy offering.

Pickering’s pitch stayed in familiar territory: crime, transparency, and drawing back on bureaucracy like Treaty. He wants to beef up the police force, and referred specifically to the “thin blue line”, while also wanting to make cabinet records public in much shorter timeframes.

The federal political reporters in the room must have felt déjà vu, having covered federal leader Pauline Hanson’s National Press Club debut in June. Similarly to that event, Pickering’s quickly sold out. It felt like a coming of age for the previously fringe party, now polling as high as 21% in the state — above the incumbent government.

Nine’s state political reporter Heidi Murphy took the lead on questions, followed by regional ABC journalist Erin Somerville. The latter was flanked by 23-year-old One Nation aide Harry Mulry, shirt untucked and hair closely shaved, appearing tense as he scanned the room back and forth. On his other side was Patrick Donovan, CEO of the Melbourne Press Club, and their table included The Age’s Michael Bachelard and sponsors from the University of Melbourne.

One Nation has shown strength in Victoria, ostensibly the nation’s most progressive state, even if it has sometimes felt isolated from some of the party’s key voter bases federally. But Pickering, running for the fringe seat of Pakenham, where this correspondent resides — the One Nation leader, however, resides 40 minutes outside of the seat, registered to an address in Warragul — is almost a shoo-in for election in the lower house.

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At the Melbourne Press Club, he speaks with the confidence of a man who knows he will at the least get to be a rabble-rouser on Spring Street…

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