Nationals leader Matt Canavan was cornered at the National Bush Summit in Dubbo on Thursday, humiliated over why he isn't on the same side as One Nation. It is a party he copies on almost every policy that matters in the bush, yet he could only offer the arrogant excuse that his party got there first.
"When I look at One Nation and the Nats, you essentially agree on a lot of things. You two get along pretty well and you're chasing the same voters. So why are you not on the same side?" the panel's moderator asked. "Well, I think we were here first, weren't we?" Canavan said.
Over the next few hours three different people asked him seven times whether he'd do a deal with Pauline Hanson to save regional Australia, and his total lack of leadership showed as he never once said yes. While Canavan hid behind party territorialism, Hanson completely outmaneuvered him by agreeing on the spot to put a Coalition government in place to get rid of the Labor government.
Hanson delivers decisive pledge while weak Canavan babbles about 2010 to duck a commitment
Hanson gave her decisive commitment without being chased for it, proving she has the courage the Nationals lack by declaring that if the Coalition finished two or three seats short of government, One Nation would put it in.
"If we're two or three seats short, and I have said this publicly, Matt, of keeping Labor out of government, too right, I will," she said.
She then put Canavan on the spot, demanding he give her that commitment back if One Nation ended up holding the balance. Instead of showing actual leadership, a weak Canavan panicked and retreated back to the 2010 election, rambling about how two country independents put Julia Gillard into power before burying his answer under self serving campaign talk.
"If that's the commitment, fantastic," he said, adding that "we won't be supporting a Labor government", before turning to the Coalition's prospects. "At the same time, I do think the best thing for the country is we need a strong government now. We need a stable team."
Here's every single time he ducked the question, and the pathetic excuses he offered back.
Post panel coverage humiliated Canavan, declaring a points win to Hanson while calling out the Nationals leader for cowardly prevarication when pressed to match her strength.
| The question put to Canavan | What he answered |
|---|---|
| Are you happy to work with One Nation? | "I'll always work with the people that the Australian people elect" |
| Hanson: "Do you want to be in a coalition with us?" | He gave no answer |
| Would your advice to Angus Taylor be to cut a deal with One Nation? | He talked about the 2010 election |
| Hanson: "If we're two or three seats short, are you going to do the same?" | "We need a stable team" |
| Why won't you consider a governing alliance? | "I will work with the parliament that people give us" |
| If One Nation wins more seats, would you support them to govern? | "I won't be supporting Labor" |
| "But I was asking about One Nation, if One Nation has more seats" | "I'm fighting to get 76 at least" |
Joyce humiliates Canavan as One Nation offers selfless coalition terms while Nationals stall
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce, who walked out on the Nationals in December 2025, laid out his new party's terms in an interview that same night, utterly exposing the Coalition's addiction to political perks. What he described is a pure confidence and supply agreement rather than a standard Coalition deal, with One Nation taking absolutely nothing for itself while the Nationals obsess over positions.
"You get all the prizes, you get all the people on the blue carpet, you get all the ministries, all the big pay packets, all the being called honourable, all the $400,000 a year salaries," Joyce said. "We don't want them. What we want is policy outcomes."
He named the price as abolishing the climate change department, scrapping the Capacity Investment Scheme and locking in One Nation's immigration numbers. The only condition attached is that the Coalition does the same for One Nation if the seats fall the other way.
Joyce also demolished any excuse that the offer was hidden, telling the interviewer that "I've put it out publicly and Pauline's put it out publicly".
When presented with Canavan's desperate line that he is happy to work with anyone who wants Labor gone, Joyce delivered a devastating reality check that left the Nationals leader with nowhere to hide.
"Well, Matt, the Greens want to get rid of Labor. You're going to work with them?"
Canavan’s territorial hubris crumbles as brutal polling predicts complete Nationals wipeout
The real driver behind Canavan's desperate Bush Summit evasion sits directly in his own side's polling. DemosAU's seat model, built from 9,343 voters surveyed between May and July and run through 20,000 simulations, projects the Nationals would be completely annihilated down to between zero and two seats if an election were held today. That is a catastrophic collapse from the nine seats they cling to right now.
| DemosAU projection, May to July 2026 | Seats |
|---|---|
| Labor | 60 to 72 |
| One Nation | 53 to 66 |
| Liberal | 11 to 20 |
| Nationals | 0 to 2 |
The same polling has the Nationals heartland falling, with Maranoa, Riverina, Parkes, Flynn, Capricornia, Hinkler and Cowper all projected to change hands, while rating Dawson, Lyne and Wide Bay as vulnerable.
Parkes is the exact seat where the summit took place, and Canavan was forced to name drop it from the stage while scrambling to explain how he expects to survive.
"That means I've got to keep people like Jamie Chaffey here in Parkes. He's doing an excellent job," he said, desperately trying to protect a seat Chaffey barely won in 2025 by a slim 5.18% margin.
The modelling exposes Canavan's hypocrisy even further. One Nation preferences already flow to the Coalition at a massive 80%, while Coalition preferences flow back to One Nation at just 67%. Canavan previously demanded that any deal "has to be a two way street". Yet on these exact numbers, One Nation is already handing him 13 points more than his failing party gives back.
Coalition won't name a migration number as Canavan stalls until 2028
Asked on stage for One Nation's migration number, Hanson clearly declared that permanent residency lands at 130,000. Pacific workers and other visa holders are counted separately, because they are temporary and housed by the farms and businesses that hire them.
Put to her that the total is therefore higher than 130,000, she agreed without hedging.
"Correct, because your farm workers, rural and regional Australia, would die if they didn't have the workers coming in, and especially the abattoirs and the farmers," she said.
Canavan was then put on the spot for the Coalition's actual figure, exposing how terrified the Liberals and Nationals are of locking in a real number. Caught between regional employers who want high migration and conservative voters who want lower numbers, Canavan stalled rather than commit to a figure. He immediately scrambled for cover, claiming it would be set "close to the election" because pinning it down now would be "a little bit of a folly".
"One Nation has a number now and you don't," the moderator told him.
Hours later, in a television interview, a defensive Canavan tried to spin the Coalition as "the only major political party in the country that wants to see and has a plan to see migration numbers fall". But when pressed, he wouldn't name the target, which keeps the Coalition from losing votes on either side. He claimed the figure would be "calibrated to the number of homes we build", currently 170,000 to 180,000 a year, before admitting the Coalition intends to keep voters completely in the dark until the last possible minute by stating "we can't put the number in place until 2028".
Hanson tells Canavan to stop lying as she reveals the Nationals voted down her milk price bill
The panel then turned on a dairy code of conduct from 2019, completely exposing the Nationals fake claim of fighting for regional producers. Hanson called out the party for betraying dairy farmers when she put up a bill to give them a fair farm gate price, pointing out that the Nationals and Liberals killed it.
The parliamentary record backs her. Her Saving Australian Dairy Bill, which would have forced the ACCC to set a floor price for milk, was voted down 31 to 30 in November 2019, rejected twice by Liberal and National senators.
A cornered Canavan hit back by pointing to a Nationals agriculture minister, Bridget McKenzie, who delivered the mandatory dairy code that took effect in January 2020. Hanson cut back over the top of him to reject his claim to the credit, saying she got that code implemented herself, before telling him directly to his face, "Don't lie to the people."
Canavan had no answer to the betrayal, feebly offering that the exchange had answered the question the panel opened with. "I think we know why you're not on the same side," he said, desperately trying to change the subject while adding that he was trying to work with her.
Canavan gets outmaneuvered as Hanson proves the Nationals took years to drop net zero
Hanson told the panel she had dragged the major parties to her positions on immigration, net zero and the Voice, calling out the Nationals for weakly trailing behind her by stating that on the Voice "the Nats came out two weeks after that".
The actual timeline was even worse for Canavan, proving just how long the Nationals dragged their feet before finding the courage to take a stand. Her post confirming One Nation would oppose a Voice to Parliament went up on 4 May 2022. The timid Nationals announced their opposition on 27 November 2022, trailing her by nearly seven months.
The Nationals were also years behind her on net zero, having blindly signed up to the destructive target in 2021 under Joyce before finally dumping it on 2 November 2025. Canavan claimed to oppose it inside the party and co led the review that ended it, yet he failed to change his own party's course for four long years after it adopted the target, limping to the finish line six months after the 2025 election.
Hanson exposes the Nationals trailing One Nation for a decade across the big bush policies
The last question of the panel exposed the complete sham of Canavan's territorial stance, asking each leader for the single biggest reason a regional voter should pick their party over the other.
Canavan offered weak political posturing, claiming he would unlock the country's potential by using coal and uranium for power, restoring the right to farm and building dams.
Hanson matched him item for item, declaring she would close the climate change department from day one, stop solar panels going on prime agricultural land, bring power prices down and look at uranium and nuclear power.
Neither leader could name a single policy the other disagrees with, and what they squabbled over instead was who thought of the platform first.
On the positions they fought over on stage, and on core bush issues going back a decade, the legislative record exposes the Nationals as late arrivals who routinely copy One Nation's homework.
| Position | One Nation | The Nationals and Coalition |
|---|---|---|
| A banking royal commission | ✔ Called for one in July 2016 | Opposed it, and Joyce said in April 2018 he had been wrong |
| Lifting the nuclear ban | ✔ Bill introduced in NSW in May 2019 | Canavan's Senate bill came in September 2022, Coalition policy in June 2024 |
| A set dairy farm gate price | ✔ Bill introduced in November 2019 | Voted it down 31 to 30, then brought in a code in January 2020 |
| Opposing the Voice | ✔ 4 May 2022 | 27 November 2022 |
| Scrapping net zero | ✔ Opposed the target from the outset | Adopted it in 2021, dumped it on 2 November 2025 |
| A stated migration number | ✔ 130,000, given on stage in Dubbo | None until 2028, Canavan says |
Whether it was a banking royal commission, lifting the nuclear ban, establishing a set dairy price, opposing the Voice, dumping net zero, or setting migration caps, One Nation staked out the position first while the Nationals dragged their feet for months or years.
On the same DemosAU modelling, One Nation and the Coalition command a massive 51% of the primary vote combined, crushing Labor's dismal 26%. Yet because of Canavan's stubborn refusal to unite the conservative vote, both parties march toward the 2028 election wasting energy fighting each other for the exact same seats.
