Pauline Hanson’s candidate for next month’s Farrer byelection sought to run for Labor under Anthony Albanese’s leadership and personally donated to the party’s election fund, in a blow for a One Nation campaign built on attacking the major parties.
David Farley, the Narrandera-based irrigator selected by One Nation for the May 9 contest triggered by the resignation of deposed Liberal leader Sussan Ley, is a frontrunner for the seat in both published opinion polls and corporate betting markets.
But this masthead has confirmed the 69-year-old – also a one-time NSW Nationals member – approached state Labor figures in 2021 seeking to help depose the Coalition government at the 2022 federal election, having applied to join to become a branch member a year earlier.
Labor sources, not authorised to speak on behalf of the party, said the former chief executive of the country’s largest cattle business, Australian Agricultural Company (AACo), met local branch members and even completed a candidate’s expression of interest, which was lodged to the NSW party’s Sussex Street headquarters in Sydney.
The ALP’s 2022 platform included support for net-zero emissions by 2050, an Indigenous Voice to Parliament and doubling the nation’s refugee intake – all policies vehemently opposed by Hanson.
Farley’s potential candidacy was not considered viable by party officials after low-level vetting, sources said.
Their concerns were tied to elements of his personal history and background, including his 2012 remarks about former prime minister Julia Gillard being a “non-productive old cow” and campaigning to fill hundreds of jobs at a Northern Territory abattoir with workers hired from India on 457 visas. His membership application was also rejected.
Despite failing to gain Labor’s endorsement, sources said someone with Farley’s same details had also donated to Labor as recently as March 2023, making a small personal contribution to the party’s Aston byelection campaign, where the Albanese government boosted its majority with a shock win. One source said Farley had donated about $100 in response to a call-out for donations from Labor HQ amid claims they were being outspent by the Liberals.
Farley did not return calls or messages on Sunday, apart from texting: “at church. Talk latter” [sic].
ALP national secretary Paul Erickson declined to comment when asked about Farley’s applications and donor history.
The revelation cuts against One Nation’s outsider message in a byelection being closely watched as a test of the party’s rising support nationally, and of Opposition Leader Angus Taylor as the Liberals fight to hold the sprawling rural southern NSW seat.
Farley’s main challenger for the seat is Climate 200-backed community independent Michelle Milthorpe, who whittled Ley’s lead down to just 6.2 per cent at last May’s federal election. She has fought hard against claims that she’s beholden to Climate 200, arguing that only 2 per cent of donations made to her campaign came from the funding vehicle.
Support for Liberal candidate Raissa Butkowski, according to several published polls, has fallen to 16.1 per cent, well behind One Nation (30.9 per cent) and Milthorpe (30 per cent), according to a uComms poll published last week in The Conversation. Both Coalition parties have directed preferences to Farley ahead of Milthorpe.
Farley has been campaigning as a regional conservative focused on irrigation, energy and cost-of-living pressures, as One Nation seeks to convert its polling momentum into a breakthrough result in Farrer.
The Labor links are not his only connection to a major party, and he was reportedly floated in 2013 as a potential replacement for Barnaby Joyce in the Senate.
After departing AACo suddenly in 2013, he later became a financial member of the NSW Nationals Party from November 2015 to November 2020, when he allowed his membership to lapse.
A senior Nationals figure said relations within the party were not always cordial. In May 2018, he wrote an email to party officials asking for a commission in return for the amount of new members he had signed in the region. In August 2019, he unsuccessfully sought to be nominated for an NSW upper house casual vacancy after by the retirement of Niall Blair, a cabinet minister in both the Berejiklian and Baird governments.
Pre-polling in Farrer opens on Tuesday.
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Rob Harris is the national correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age based in Canberra. He is a former Europe correspondent.Connect via email.