The Liberal Party should not try to outspend Labor to win the hearts and minds of voters, warns Stuart Bonds, a coal miner who recently ran for One Nation in the Hunter electorate.
Bonds said the traditional centre-right Liberals should not shy away from embracing long term economic reform as a policy, even if it is unpopular in the short-term.
“The Liberal Party will never go far enough, as far as spending,” Bonds told The Epoch Times. “So they’ll only ever be a half-Labor Party.”
Bonds’ comments come as the Labor Party wins a record 94 seats in the Australian Lower House, the most of any Labor Party in history.
“What wins conservative governments power is the vision for the future because you’re not selling them trinkets, in my opinion,” Bonds said.
“You’re selling them a vision for the future. You’re promising them that things will get better.
“If you can’t promise them that, then they will vote with their self-interests.”
He was critical of the fact neither party looked seriously at denting Australia’s national debt, which is tipped to reach $1 trillion by as early as September.
During the past year, Labor pledged extra free childcare slots, cut debt for university students, offered payments for families to cover their energy bills, and spent more on public health.
How Did the Right Fare?
As for the burgeoning right-leaning political parties, Bonds said the future of One Nation looked promising after its results.While the minor conservative party did not pick up any Lower House seats, it won 6.4 percent of the national vote, with 992,093 in total by May 24.
Bonds personally performed strongly in his Hunter seat, with 45,746 votes compared to winning Labor incumbent Dan Repacholi, with 65,926 votes.
The Hunter coal miner said he spoke to a large number of people at the voting booth who were not previous One Nation voters, but were now supporters of Pauline Hanson’s party.
“I think the prospects for the party look good because everything that Pauline’s been talking about for 28 years is continuing to happen,” Bonds said.
“The immigration rate is too high, Australians are being forced out of their houses, the electricity grid is failing because we haven’t put the right money and infrastructure into it.”
“People have shook [Pauline’s] hand and said, ‘I’m sorry, you were right. And I’m sorry about the things I said about you.’” he said.
The seat of Hunter covers the Hunter Valley, Singleton, Muswellbrook, and Cessnock. Bonds says housing has been a major issue as well.
The Albanese Labor government is falling short of achieving its ambitious target to build 1.2 million homes by 2029.
Reaching the benchmark would require building 240,000 homes per year, but ABS figures reveal that since the Housing Accord began in July 2024, about 90,000 new dwellings have been completed.
Bonds said an influx on immigrants combined with a housing crisis could be economic “suicide” as this would continue driving up dwelling costs.
Bonds Says He'll be Back
Despite his defeat to Repacholi, Bonds said he wasn’t going anywhere, and would be back to contest the next election—Bonds has run since 2019 in the coal-mining hub.“Coal demand is at a record high. Worldwide, the demand is going up, year on year,” he said.
“So we would have to be one of the dumbest countries in the world to cut off one of our major exports.”
