Tensions Already Emerging In One Nation As Pauline Realises Barnaby Is A Far Bigger Celebrity Than Her At Tamworth

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

There are three things certain in Australian life.

Death, taxes, and Pauline Hanson's inability to work alongside others.

Much like a breakfast TV host who notices the weatherman getting a bit too big for their boots, Pauline Hanson is known for finding reasons to sack anyone who begins to steal her thunder.

That's if they don't resign from her party first. Or get charged with voter fraud. Or get secretly filmed talking about their love of rooting foreign sex workers on a hidden camera attached to an undercover journalist in an American strip club during a covert junket to meet lobbyists for the National Rifle Association and ask them for millions of dollars in exchange for watering down Australian gun control laws.

However, this historic trend of personality clashes and blatant criminality within One Nation is quickly dismissed every time the Federal Coalition slumps in the polls and Pauline Hanson becomes the flavour of the month again.

While the Australian media would prefer to forget names like Fraser Anning, David Oldfield, David Etridge, Brian Burston, Rod Culleton, Steve Dickson - or even Mark Latham - the fact remains: One Nation is Pauline Hanson's party and nobody else's. Even if she did get ousted in the early 2000s and had to start a new party with a slightly different name.

Enter Barnaby Joyce.

The twice-married and three (maybe four?) times Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. A man who doesn't sit still. A man who has grown used to the limelight - a man that won't be told what to do. A man that has disobeyed and destabilised multiple Prime Ministers. A man that completely reshaped and twisted the National Party into knots before pulling a parachute cord and joining Pauline Hanson's One Nation.

Will these two political mavericks be able to get along well enough to present a formidable political force? The media really wants to think so.

However, a string of former Prime Ministers and Deputy Prime Ministers - including Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison, Michael McCormack and David Littleproud - would probably argue otherwise.

All Pauline requires of Barnaby is for him to play second fiddle and let her be the star.

But judging by the sea of selfies and free beers that he was met with at the Tamworth Country Music festival, the honeymoon is already over.