Federal Liberal MP Tony Pasin has called on his party to negotiate a seat-sharing deal with One Nation, a move that would keep the two parties out of each other’s way in selected contests. Pasin, the member for Barker in South Australia, made the appeal on Thursday, June 11.
The request landed on a day when a live blog carried multiple national news updates, giving the intervention a wider audience than a backbench remark would normally draw. It also sharpened an already awkward question for the Liberals: whether it makes more sense to fight One Nation everywhere or strike a local understanding where both sides are competing for the same voters.
A seat-sharing deal would mean one party would not contest a seat the other was running in. That makes Pasin’s proposal more than a loose call for co-operation; it is an attempt to redraw the contest before ballots are cast, and it places pressure on Liberal strategists to decide whether practical electoral deals matter more than a clean fight.
But the idea did not go unchallenged. Coalition leaders later rubbished the suggestion from the backbenches, underscoring how divisive any arrangement with the rising One Nation would be inside conservative ranks. The push and the put-down leave Pasin’s call hanging in the open: it has been made, but there is no sign yet that the Liberal Party is prepared to act on it.
