One Nation have dumped Ben Dawkins from their upper house ticket for the 2025 state election. WA party leader Rod Caddies told The West Australian that Dawkins lacked professionalism.
“I’ll be the one responsible for who is on the ticket and who represents us in WA, I just don’t think he lived up to the professionalism of what I would expect,” Caddies told the newspaper.
Caddies, who is not in parliament serves as the party’s WA leader, and will take the top spot on their ticket for the 2025 election.
Dawkins originally arrived in parliament as a Labor member when former Minister Alannah MacTiernan retired.
He was immediately dumped by Labor as he was facing multiple charges relating to harassment of his estranged wife. After entering parliament as an independent he was embraced by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson who welcomed him into her party.
A court convicted Dawkins of 35 breaches of a restraining order, over what police described as belittling and abusive emails to his estranged wife. He was fined and given a 10-mnth community-based order.
When she welcomed Dawkins into the party Senator Hanson denied he had a conviction, and said it was not an issue for the party.
While in parliament Dawkins has focused largely on transgender issues. In March he moved a motion calling for biological sex to recognised as being of more importance than gender identity, a move that no other member in the Legislative Assembly supported.
He’s also questioned the Cook government’s decision to provide funding to organisations that support LGBTIQA+ communities.
Speaking to The West Australian Dawkins said he would remain with the party and support Caddies bid to be elected in 2025.
One Nation has had many different members of parliament over the years but few have served a full term
The party’s first three representatives in the WA parliament were elected in 2001 but all quit to sit as an independents within a few years. Paddy Embry left the part in 2003, later moving to the New Country Party, John Fischer and Frank Hough moved to being independents the following year.
In 2017 the party made a comeback with three MPs, Charles Smith quit the party in 2019 becoming an independent and then joining the Western Australia Party until 2021. Colin Tincknell and Robin Scott were defeated at the 2021 election.
Today Rod Caddies said the party hoped to field candidates in as many of the 59 lower house seats as possible, noting that over 80 people have expressed interest in running for the party.
The party’s ability to adequately vet their candidates background has been questioned in the past.
In 2017 OUTinPerth revealed that one of their lower house candidates believed that the LGBTIQA+ community utilised mind control tactics similar to those developed by the Nazi party.
During the same election campaign another candidate issued an apology for social media comments he’d made about LGBTIQA+ people, while another argued that marriage equality would lead to polygamy and incest.
A fourth candidate penned an article that described homosexuality as “an acceptable loss, on evolutionary terms” and said that only a “degenerate culture” would allow people of the same sex to marry. None of them were successfully elected.
