David Farley has been named as One Nation’s candidate in the federal byelection for the seat of the ousted Liberal leader, Sussan Ley.
The New South Wales electorate of Farrer will go to the polls on 9 May after Ley, who held the seat for 25 years, quit parliament last month after being deposed as opposition leader by Angus Taylor.
While the Liberals are yet to nominate a candidate for the traditionally conservative stronghold, One Nation held a three-way ballot in Albury on Saturday, with Farley, 69, a Narrandera-based irrigator, winning the confidence of his party over Albury small business owner, Leigh Wolki, 58, and Guy Cooper, 31, from a fifth generation Farrer farming family.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and the former deputy prime minister and Nationals member for New England, Barnaby Joyce, who defected to the rightwing party in December, were in Albury for the preselection meeting and announcement.
Hanson said she was confident the party had selected the right candidate.
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“This is a resilient community of proud Australians. They deserve a representative who shares the same values, who works hard, and who puts their community first. David Farley is that representative,” she said in a statement after the nomination.
Farley claimed in a statement that One Nation represented “the only real alternative for Australians who are watching their living standards go backward under Labor”.
The byelection in the 126,000 sq km rural electorate will test One Nation’s on-ground organisational skills at a time when the party’s popularity is surging, according to recent polling. Before Saturday’s contest, Hanson said the “eyes of the entire nation” would be on the outcome.
It will also test Taylor’s new leadership. In an address to the NSW Liberal party state council on Saturday morning, the newly minted leader of the opposition said the byelection was going to be a “tough fight”.
“With your help, we’re going to be putting up a hell of a fight in Farrer, all the way through to the close of the polls,” Taylor said.
The Liberal and National parties are yet to announce their contenders for the byelection. The Climate 200-backed independent candidate, Michelle Millthorpe, who took on Ley at the last election, will run again. Labor is unlikely to field a candidate.
Nominations for the seat, in south-western NSW, close on 13 April.
