Joyce denies claims of MP’s One Nation exit as Hanson fires back at Albanese

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has rubbished claims his parliamentary colleague David Farley is considering quitting the party after less than three months in the role, as Pauline Hanson accuses the prime minister of stoking political violence.

Hanson’s comments come just days after her party’s first successful foray into Labor heartland outside Queensland – winning the West Australian state byelection in Secret Harbour – and a Victorian campaign event where she drove a nail into, and later buried, a coffin labelled “net zero”.

A report that Farley was “poised” to quit the party and sit as an independent was published in The Saturday Paper. The One Nation MP was elected in May at the Farrer byelection, the first time the party had won a seat in the House of Representatives.

“I had a conversation with him nearly a day or so ago, and that was completely the opposite of what he said to me,” Joyce told ABC radio on Monday.

“He’s incredibly competent … he’s an asset to the party. Of course, the media have a lot of fun with people if they can smell blood on the waters.”

One Nation won the West Australian state byelection in the previously safe Labor seat of Secret Harbour on Saturday, with an enormous swing towards new MP Luke Herdegen.

Speaking the next day at Labor’s Queensland state conference, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Hanson sought “to divide Australians” and “talks Australia down both here and overseas”.

“Parties like One Nation have no serious answers to our problems,” Albanese said. “Their own divisions and disagreements are now showing through. They think Australians are lazy and overpaid. That people working from home are bludging. That domestic violence is sometimes a woman’s fault. That we should, somehow, become a monoculture.”

Taking to social media on Monday morning, Hanson said Albanese’s speech had crossed a line, arguing his rhetoric had become “increasingly desperate”.

“No matter how worried Jim and Albanese are about losing their jobs, telling Australians that their democratically elected opponents are ‘dangerous’ and a ‘threat to our country’ invites people to treat them as a threat. Words have consequences. That is how political violence is incited,” Hanson wrote.

Hanson cited the death of conservative British politician Ann Widdecombe as a warning over the danger of violent political rhetoric. Widdecombe was found dead in her home in July, having suffered a serious injury to her head. A man has been charged with her murder and is expected to face trial next year.

Threats against MPs have been steadily escalating recently. There are about 20 ongoing court matters across the country in which people are accused of making violent threats against Albanese. Nearly 40 people have been charged with Commonwealth crimes since September last year for threatening MPs and other high office holders.

One of the threatened MPs, Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie, has been afforded additional security. Sources told this masthead Hastie believed the decision was driven by an orchestrated campaign against him online that had been fuelled by One Nation and its supporters over the Ben Roberts-Smith saga.

Appearing on News24, formerly Sky News, on Monday morning, Joyce would not say whether Albanese had incited violence against One Nation representatives, instead pointing out he thought the prime minister was a liar.

“I just don’t believe them. It’s like listening to a crazy man in a park. What’s the point? You know, when people have proved themselves to be liars and they don’t basically ask for forgiveness on that, you just dispense with them and say everything they say is irrelevant,” Joyce said.

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