WA Nationals in One Nation firing line

Mr Tinckell said he expected One Nation to win two seats in the Agricultural Region, one or two in the Mining and Pastoral region and the same prediction in the South West.

He also believes they are in with a chance of taking a seat or two in the North Metro and East Metro regions traditionally dominated by Labor and Liberals.

The WA Nationals currently hold five upper house seats behind the Liberals (17), Labor (11), Greens two and the Shooters and Fishers one.

But the Nationals also claimed seven lower house seats in the WA parliament at the 2013 election and despite being an independent party and not holding an outright balance of power position, have been in government with the Liberals over the past four-years for a second term.

Mr Tincknell admitted One Nation would battle to win seats in the Lower House this year but would target specific regional electorates; including Pilbara held by Nationals leader Brendon Grylls.

“We can get rid of the Nationals in a couple of elections,” he said.

“They seem to blame the Liberals for everything but they’ve been partners in government with them and need to take responsibility for the budget position that WA finds itself in right now.

“Brendon Grylls and Terry Redman have been the leaders and they have to take responsibility for where the books are now and the Nationals haven’t represented the agricultural sector very well either.

“Royalties for Regions has been good in some areas but disappointing in others.”

Mr Tincknell is a former AFL development officer who has worked in the WA media and running his own printing business and more recently in stakeholder engagement through his personal consultancy business.

That role involves dealing with government on various issues like land access negotiations for resource companies, in particular serving the needs of indigenous communities.

But he’s now been thrust into a new top-job spearheading One Nation’s fortunes leading into the March poll and maintaining a straight aim as controversy surrounds embattled WA Senator Rod Culleton who quit the party before Christmas after a high profile fall-out with party leader Pauline Hanson.

However, Mr Tincknell says Senator Hanson remains a popular and highly identifiable figure in WA where he expects One Nation to cash-in its success at the 2016 federal election, in winning four Senate positions in Canberra.

He admits the playing out of Senator Culleton’s ongoing and vexed legal affairs in public has caused the party brand damage leading into the March election.

But despite that set-back, and a pledge to vet party candidates more thoroughly, while appointing a long-standing loyal party servant to replace the former Williams farmer, if he’s ultimately dispelled from the federal Upper House, he believes One Nation can still claim a strong footing in the WA parliament.

Mr Tincknell said the new mining tax proposed by Mr Grylls was an “ill conceived” and “dumb” policy that he believed threatened up to 3000 jobs in WA’s far north in seeking to impose a “quick-fix” solution in response to government mismanagement around the mining boom.

“This new mining tax is a political stunt and if the Liberals were returned to power with the support of the Nationals there’s a pretty good chance Colin Barnett would cave in and allow this tax to go ahead,” he said.

“But that would be disastrous for Western Australia and for the families of Western Australia with thousands of people losing their jobs and many others losing their livelihoods.

“WA can’t afford a hit like that right now; just to try and quickly fix the books.”

Mr Tincknell is expecting One Nation to win official party registration in WA well before the March 11 polling date but is already getting on the front foot to chastise his political rivals, while speaking to potential candidates in various seats, including farmers.

He said WA had gone through a rough time during the past 12-18 months and “everyone agrees we shouldn’t be in this position”.

“There’s a lot of anger towards Colin Barnett but I think sometimes people forget that he had partners in government and the National Party were a part of that so they have to take responsibility for where the books are at the moment,” he said.

“Western Australia has had a boom and now we’re off the boil - with a lot of people in WA struggling at the moment - but I see signs that it could come back at some stage in the next few years so we need to keep people working.

“Pauline Hanson and One Nation have got some great ideas and some answers about how we can keep those people working and it’s certainly not bringing in a giant tax that could cost us 2000 or 3000 jobs right now if they were to bring it in.

“Brendon Gryll’s idea of bringing in a new mining tax may appeal to people who love the sort of ‘tall poppy syndrome’ but really it’s no answer and there’s no quick fix.

“This is something that’s happened over an eight or nine year period and it may take us another eight or nine years to get back to balancing the books.

“The important thing right now is to look after the people of WA.”

Mr Tincknell said One Nation’s policies would be released later this month and they had “wonderful candidates” to run in the upper house and in some lower house seats but declined to specify which ones.

He said being a small party – in terms of resources – One Nation would not attempt to run candidates in all seats but were “a strong movement and people are saying they want to be a part of it”.

“People are telling us they want to be a part of One Nation – they believe we have some of the answers that the Liberal and Labour parties have not been able to come up with,” he said.

“We believe government interference in farmers’ lives has gone too far and you could also say the same about the resources industry; both red tape and green tape is way out of hand.

“The costs of doing business is so restrictive that people are giving up.

“They have some great ideas but can’t move ahead because there are just too many roadblocks.”

Mr Tincknell said government needed to “get out of peoples’ lives and support business and support initiatives”.

“We talk about innovation in modern society but we’ve hamstrung it with too many regulations but we’ve got too clear the way,” he said.

“The left agenda has taken over in those areas and political correctness has also taken over and we need to reverse that.

“Ordinary West Australians are looking for a change and Pauline is the only one offering this change.

“Farmers and agricultural people are looking for change and they’re saying it’s going to be One Nation that helps them get ahead because they’ve been let down by the Liberals and Nationals.”

Mr Tincknell said his party would develop unique plans to improve agricultural output and community prosperity in northern Australia by building dams and using water more efficiently.

He said there was an “enormous” amount of water in north-west WA and something must be done to capture it and utilise the opportunity to produce food or other farm products, as most of it was “running out to the ocean”.

Mr Tincknell said national parks had also been put in the way of future economic development in certain areas and improved land-access arrangements needed to be negotiated.

“We believe water is the number one resource in Australia,” he said.

In a blog on his election website, ABC election analyst Antony Green said strong polling ahead of this year’s WA election made One Nation a “wild card” in what’s likely to be a close election.

Mr Green said in 2001 the electoral success of One Nation played a part in defeating Richard Court's government and the election of Labor to office.

He said if One Nation repeated its past level of support, it would struggle to win lower house seats but could win at least three Legislative Council seats.

“Past elections have shown a consistent pattern of One Nation polling more strongly in regional Western Australia, but also polling well in outer southern and eastern parts of Perth,” he said.

“One Nation has damaged the Liberal and National Parties in the past by taking first preference vote support which then dissipates as preferences to both sides of politics.”

Mr Green said One Nation did not contest any of WA's 16 lower house electorates at last July's federal election but polled 4 per cent of the Senate vote which saw Senator Culleton elected, with a lower quota needed at a double dissolution poll.

He said One Nation's support was weaker in Perth at the 2016 federal election but stronger in regional areas in the Liberal held seats of Durack (7pc), O'Connor (6.3pc), Forrest (6.3pc) and Pearce (5.5pc).

Mr Tincknell said he contacted the party recently and was promptly approached to be a candidate for the WA election as they remembered his experience from 20-years ago.

He ran for One Nation at the 1998 federal election in second place on the party’s Senate ticket which he said was “a bit of an apprenticeship” and the first time he’d ever been involved with a political outfit.

“Pauline was talking about certain issues back then and those issues resonated with me so I decided to investigate that,” he said.

“Back in 1998 every single party didn’t give us any preferences so it was a tough gig but we learnt a lot and it’s a bit different today.”

Mr Tincknell said he was a “stakeholder engagement guy” who was in the job of talking to the public and listening to their concerns and bringing those concerns to the table.

“That’s what I want to do for One Nation,” he said and is also a potential candidate to replace Senator Culleton or run for a leading post at the WA election.

“I run a land access business working with resources companies who want to develop projects in the regions,” he said.

“I’ve worked in gold and uranium mining and many different areas.

“For me it’s about communicating what those companies want to do, to the public that live in that area.

“I got an opportunity about 15 years ago to go and head up the AFL in NZ and that was an exciting time and my wife is a New Zealander.

“I really enjoyed that work and grew the game from about 13,000 people playing to about 33,000 playing, in a two-three year period.”